


Fata Organa

by elivigar



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marijuana, Pining, Romance, Smoking, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elivigar/pseuds/elivigar
Summary: Every time it happens and Michael tries to fall asleep alone in his bed sometime later, he wonders whyhecan’t be the one that Calum goes on dates with.But he doesn’t ask, never even considers doing it.He decided early on that allowing his heart to break on a weekly basis is a better alternative than potentially losing his best friend while simultaneously humiliating himself.In which everyone, including Michael, knows that engaging in casual sex with a best friend that you happen to be in love with is a bad idea, and Calum is oblivious.
Relationships: Calum Hood/Original Male Character(s) (minor), Luke Hemmings/Ashton Irwin (Side), Michael Clifford/Calum Hood
Comments: 13
Kudos: 33





	Fata Organa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [i_like_5sos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_like_5sos/gifts).



> Hi, everyone! Here comes my second longest fic written for the 5SOS fandom so far, and it’s Malum; who’d have thought? I love all the band-pairings, and I’ll read them all without batting an eyelash, but I really thought the second “longer” fic I’d post would either be another Lashton, or Cashton or Muke, to be quite honest. Doesn’t matter, though, ‘cause I had a fucking blast writing this (mixed with some emotional turmoil, a fuckton of frustration and many playthroughs of JBH because that song slaps and it’s very Malum-heavy). 
> 
> Anyway, this was written for [Kyana](https://i-like-5sos.tumblr.com), lovely and sweet and overall amazing as she is, for the fantastic [Hazel’s](https://allsassnoclass.tumblr.com) Fic Gift Exchange.
> 
> If anyone wants to read this fic without the smut, shoot me a message on [Tumblr](https://ashtcnirwin.tumblr.com) (off anon or providing me with an email address) and I’ll be happy to make some edits and send you a PDF♥
> 
> Hope some of you enjoy this! Come talk on [Tumblr](https://ashtcnriwin.tumblr.com) if you wanna!

Sometimes, Michael wonders what he would do if he could rethink some of his past decisions. If he knew that making out with Josephine in year nine would throw a big, fat gay crisis at him, one that tormented him for almost a full year after, would he still do it just to get the whole crisis out of the way, or would he prefer to find out in a less traumatic manner? If he knew that ignoring his schoolwork for a better part of year ten would lead to him being held back a year, would he have been able to pull it together enough to pass his classes, or would he repeat the same mistakes? 

And if he knew that moving into apartment 2B three years ago would grant him a best friend, but also more emotional turmoil than one should be expected to deal with on a near daily basis, would he have chosen that particular apartment? Or would he rather have chosen his own sanity over the best friendship he’s ever had?

Questions like that plague Michael more often than not, at all hours of the day. They plague him even more when he’s sitting on his couch, once again forced to listen to Calum fucking the brains out of his latest attempt at finding love through the thin wall that separates his bedroom from Michael’s living room. He has other options than to listen in – he could make use of his headphones, he could crank up the volume on the TV, he could go hang out by the computer in his bedroom, he could leave his apartment all together. 

But he never does, because he’s apparently a masochist and quite possibly also a pervert. A masochistic pervert.

“Merry early Christmas to me,” he mutters when the thumping increases in speed and volume, eventually followed by the deep groan that Michael knows oh too well as a telltale sign that Calum just finished. He knows that sound so well not only because he’s heard it through the wall a great number of times, but because he’s been the reason for it on more occasions than he’s able to recall.

He knows it because about two years ago, he allowed himself to fall into some sort of friends with benefits arrangement with the person he was, and still is, hopelessly and stupidly in love with. If that’s not a clear symptom of masochism, Michael doesn’t know what is. He’ll have sex with Calum every now and again, and then be forced to listen to tales about Calum’s latest date afterwards, sometimes while they’re lying naked side by side. And Michael’s a good friend and he’s become quite adept at hiding his feelings, so he’ll listen and he’ll offer advice and he’ll grin and say, “Anytime” when Calum thanks him. Every time it happens and Michael tries to fall asleep alone in his bed sometime later, he wonders why _he_ can’t be the one that Calum goes on dates with. 

But he doesn’t ask, never even considers doing it.

He decided early on that allowing his heart to break on a weekly basis is a better alternative than potentially losing his best friend while simultaneously humiliating himself.

So, while he knows that Calum’s lying in bed with his arms around a person who Michael can’t recall the name of, Michael goes about his apartment and cleans. He unloads the dishwasher, sweeps over the kitchen counters, waters his one and only plant, does a quick vacuum of the rug under his coffee table, and lastly puts on a load of underwear and towels. It’s become something of a nightly ritual for him before he starts getting ready for bed, to make sure that he won’t wake up to a bombsite of a home the next morning; he’s not a morning person as it is, and to have to look at mess and dust and God knows what else hardly helps his morning mood.

The big clock on his wall tells him it’s almost ten by the time he’s finished cleaning, and he grabs a shower before he heads to bed. Setting his alarm for five thirty, he hits the lights and closes his eyes while he prays that sleep will come sooner rather than later for once.

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

Michael hangs back as he watches Luke finish checking out an elderly lady, smiling brightly as he tells her, “I hope you enjoyed your stay.” The lady smiles back and spends a good three minutes telling Luke all the things she liked about the hotel, and ends the tirade by saying that her pillow had a strange lump in one corner and that they should look into having that fixed.

“I will make sure to check on that,” Luke says, and the lady bids her goodbyes before she leaves the lobby through the double sliding doors.

“You, personally, are gonna go check on a pillow?” Michael asks once they’re alone and he’s stepped up next to Luke.

“I probably should,” Luke says, worrying his bottom lip. “No one likes a lumpy pillow.”

“No, but I’m pretty sure everything that has to do with the bedding is the maids’ job, not yours.”

“Oh.” Luke grins. “Right you are, I’ll give Maya a call. How’s lunch coming along?”

“Everything that can be done for now is, so I have about half an hour of freedom before I have to get back at it,” Michael says. “Got any candy under the desk?”

Opening a drawer under the computer screen, Luke roots around it for a bit before he comes back up with a triumphant call of, “Milky Way!” He hands it to Michael, who groans with gratitude before he tears the wrapper open and scarves half of it down in one go.

Luke watches in amusement, elbow leaned on the checkout counter. “You know,” he says when Michael is busy chewing on the other half, “if you started eating something for breakfast, you might not feel the need to come out here and ask me for candy every other day. Or, you know, you could just grab some actual food from the kitchen in which you work.”

“I don’t want food, I want candy,” Michael says through a mouthful of chocolate.

“That’s just your low blood sugar talking,” Luke says with a wave of his hand. “Eat regular meals and not five tons of candy and one huge dinner every day, and you’ll start feeling better.”

“You’ve become too hung up on what I eat since you started getting that food degree.”

“Food _science_ , Michael.”

“Whatever. My point still stands.”

“So does mine: Stop eating my emergency candy stash and start taking better care of yourself.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Michael says easily. Tossing the empty wrapper in the bin under the desk, he grabs a stool and sits down. “How’s the wedding planning going?”

Luke visibly lights up. “We finally decided on a cake design, so it’s going well.”

“Meaning you whined until Ashton caved?”

“No, meaning we compromised,” Luke says. “He got the forest-y details he wanted and I got the champagne coloured roses I wanted.”

“Never thought I’d see the day,” Michael hums. “How many weeks are left now?”

“Today’s December 11th, so… five weeks and one day.”

“I still can’t for the life of me understand why you wanted to get married in the middle of bloody January. You both do realise that there’s a solid chance we’ll all melt as we watch you two declare your eternal love for each other, right?”

“At least it’ll be a day to remember,” Luke quips. “Speaking of days to remember, you never got back to me about Christmas Day.”

Michael raises a quizzical eyebrow. “What about Christmas Day?”

“Are you coming to our place or do you have other plans?”

“I didn’t know coming to your place was an option I had,” Michael says. “When did you invite me?”

Luke gapes, looking nothing short of scandalised. “I told Calum to ask you, like, three weeks ago when I had lunch with him!”

“Probably got too busy with his most recent almost-boyfriend to remember to bring the message along,” Michael says. More bitterness than intended seeps out, and Luke’s eyes go wide with pity. They always do. Smiling, Michael hurries to add, “I’ll be there. What time?”

“We’re doing prawns at two, dinner at six, but show up whenever,” Luke says. “Yelling at Calum for not passing my message along happens somewhere in between.”

“I’m gonna do that myself when I get home today, but another round for Christmas sounds nice,” Michael says. “Wouldn’t be Christmas without some yelling, would it? Not the way I remember Christmases from my childhood, at least.”

“Sorry to be the one to tell you, but I don’t think having one’s parents announce their divorce over a good ol’ game of Christmas cricket is the norm,” Luke says with a crooked smile. “You might be the only one who’s ever experienced that, actually.”

“Because I’m a special boy,” Michael says with a nod.

“The most special,” Luke agrees, giving Michael’s cheek a light pat. “Speaking of your parents, are you seeing them for the holidays?”

“They’re both fucking off to Bali with their respective partners, so no,” Michael snorts. “I was invited, but hanging out with my mum and her relatively new boyfriend or dad and his completely new girlfriend at a romantic resort for two weeks sounds very… un-Christmassy.”

“More like third-wheeling,” Luke says, scrunching up his nose. “Third-wheeling your parents and their partners. Nice.”

“Yeah. So, no. I’m spending a couple of days with mum before New Year’s, though, and dad and I are going on a day-trip to Ku-ring-gai Chase in mid-February.”

“That sounds nice. How… I mean, I know you like your mum’s guy well enough, but what about your dad’s girl?”

“She’s a few years older than him, so I feel like calling her a ‘girl’ might be a little insulting,” Michael muses. “I don’t know. I’ve only met her once, she has two daughters my age, they all seem like nice people, so… as long as he’s happy, I’m happy.”

“At least he didn’t go and find himself a partner half his age, right?” Luke says brightly. “Remember Kai, from school? His parents split a little while ago, and according to mum, they’ve both found people to date who are two years _younger_ than me.”

Michael grimaces. “And you’re twenty-five.”

Luke grins widely, putting all his pearly white teeth on display. “And his parents are, like, late forties, early fifties, while their partners are twenty-three. Kai has step-parents younger than himself! Fun, huh?”

“Very,” Michael deadpans. “Okay, I should get back to the kitchen. Do you and Ashton have any Christmas wishes, by the way? I’m going gift shopping tomorrow and I haven’t asked anyone for their lists yet.”

“I’ll send you some suggestions when I get home. What about you?”

“I don’t know, socks?”

Luke blinks. “Give it some thought and text me before Monday, okay?”

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

Michael fists the carpet underneath him, letting out a loud moan as Calum slams into him from behind. “Okay, not what I came over for,” he pants. “Like, not at fucking all.”

“No? Sorry, got a little distracted as soon as you set foot in the door.”

“Which is why we’re fucking on your goddamned living room floor,” Michael groans. “You– oh, _fuck, yes_!”

Calum laughs breathlessly as he leans forward and grabs a hold of Michael’s hair, pulling his head back slightly. “Like this, right here?” he asks as he picks up his pace, keeping his cock angled directly at Michael’s prostate. Michael bites down on the carpet as another moan forces its way out of him, and Calum asks, “You like that, baby? Does it feel good?”

“Always,” Michael gasps. Reaching between his legs, he wraps a hand around his leaking cock and starts stroking himself in time with Calum’s thrusts. He squeezes his eyes shut and heaves a breath as pleasure courses through his entire body from four different sources – from Calum’s tight grip on his hip, from having his hair pulled, from being fucked and from jerking himself off.

“Right back at ya,” Calum grunts, punctuating the sentence by burying himself completely in Michael’s ass. He stays there for a beat before he resorts to quick, shallow thrusts that have them both gasping for air within seconds. “So good, taking my cock so well, feel so much better than anyone else…”

It’s that that does it for Michael, the mindless dirty talk that Calum probably doesn’t mean anything by, but that still makes Michael’s heart swell. He collapses onto his elbow and comes all over his own hand, moaning pitifully while clenching desperately around Calum’s cock. Calum curses under his breath and digs his fingers into the soft skin on Michael’s hip, still keeping a firm hold on his hair as he chases his own orgasm with increasingly frantic thrusts. When he comes, it’s with a choked moan that goes straight to Michael’s spent dick, and he makes a tiny noise in the back of his throat while Calum rides out his high, eventually drawing to a complete halt.

He’s breathing heavily as he lets go of Michael’s hair and pulls out carefully, planting a kiss to Michael’s shoulder before he rises to his feet and heads for the bathroom. Michael can’t be bothered to move, so he simply rolls over to lie on his back, letting his sticky hand rest on his chest while he waits for Calum to return.

“Lazy fucker,” Calum sniggers when he comes back and sits down next to Michael on the floor. He wipes off Michael’s chest, hand and inner thighs with a wet washcloth before he tosses it aside and lies down, plastering himself against Michael’s side.

“So, what did you come here for?” Calum asks. “If not for sex, I mean.”

“To yell at you for not having told me I was invited to Luke and Ashton’s for Christmas,” Michael says. “And also to see if you wanted to make me dinner because I’m all out of anything and everything and I don’t wanna go shopping.”

“Sorry about the first, I forgot,” Calum says. “As for the second… sure. I was gonna have salmon, if that’s alright?”

“Mhm.” Closing his eyes, Michael tilts his head to the side and noses at Calum’s semi-sweaty hair. “So… I take it things are over between you and what’s-his-name?”

“Kevin? Yeah.”

“When did that happen? It was just the other day that I heard you going at it.”

“Happened on Tuesday,” Calum says. “He was dating another guy as well and he said it felt like it’d gotten to a point where he had to choose, and he chose the other guy.”

“You sound really broken up about it,” Michael snorts. 

“I’m alright, I wasn’t that surprised. It was fun while it lasted, but… you know.” Propping himself up on one elbow, Calum grins. “The good news is that I’m all yours again for the time being.”

“You were the one who said that I feel better than anyone else, so I think that’s good news for you as well,” Michael says, stubbornly ignoring the painful tugging at his heart strings brought on by Calum’s words.

Calum’s grin widens, his whole face lighting up with it. He’s so beautiful it fucking hurts. “And you were the one who came from being told that,” he says.

“I live for the praise,” Michael says casually. “Tell me I’m pretty and I’ll suck your dick, tell me I have beautiful eyes and I’ll let you fuck me, tell me I’m good in bed and I’m at your mercy.”

“Well, you’ve already sucked my dick _and_ let me fuck you so far today, so I’m a little late,” Calum says before he leans down and kisses Michael’s cheek. “ _But_ you are pretty–” A kiss on the jaw “–and your eyes are beautiful–” A kiss on the forehead “–and you are pretty fucking amazing in bed.”

Michael feels his cheeks heat up, and in an attempt at concealing the smile he doesn't stand a chance at holding back, he pulls Calum down on top of him for a somewhat sweaty and uncomfortable hug. Calum nuzzles into Michael’s neck while dragging his hand up and down along his side, fingers gentle against Michael’s skin. Closing his eyes, Michael gets lost in the embrace, in the tenderness that he knows he’s only gonna be allowed for a few more seconds. 

It’s in moments like this, however fleeting they may be, that it’s easy to pretend that this is how it’s always gonna be.

But, as he always does, Calum removes himself from Michael’s arms after a short while, and Michael lets it happen.

“Grab a change of clothes if you want, I’ll get started on dinner,” Calum says as he rises to his feet and reaches for the previously discarded trackies on the couch. “Potatoes, rice or pasta to go with the salmon?”

“Pasta,” Michael says. “Do you have any veggies?”

Calum frowns pensively. “Broccoli, spinach, maybe some carrots.”

“Could mix the spinach into the warm pasta and steam some broccoli to have on the side.”

“It’s when you say shit like that that I find it hard to believe you actually cook for a living,” Calum laughs.

Standing up, Michael sticks his tongue out. “I’ve been lying all these years, actually.”

“That makes more sense,” Calum says as he pulls his t-shirt over his head.

“Just for that, I’m stealing your favourite t-shirt,” Michael says as he pads towards Calum’s bedroom.

“Hey! I know you can cook if you put your mind to it!” Calum calls after him.

“Too little, too late!” Michael calls back.

As promised, he puts on Calum’s favourite t-shirt, an oversized black one with a white logo of some sort on the front, and grabs a pair of cut-off trackies to go with it. Throwing a look at his reflection in the mirror above the dresser, he grimaces at the catastrophic state of his hair and the dark red hickey blooming on the left side of his neck. He reckons it’s a good thing his work uniform is gonna cover most of it; while Michael’s not a prude, he has no desire to showcase any evidence of his extracurriculars to his coworkers either.

They eat dinner while watching an old episode of _The Office_ that they’ve both seen approximately sixty times before, but that nonetheless has them laugh through mouthfuls of food. Michael’s sluggish and tired afterwards, and he slides further and further down on the couch until most of his lower body is hanging off it.

“How much longer until that gig you’re doing is completed?” he asks as he gathers up enough energy to pull himself back up into a position that isn’t likely to destroy his back for the foreseeable future.

“Gig,” Calum sniggers. “You make it sound like my job’s so cool.”

“You build shit with your hands, I think it’s plenty cool,” Michael says.

“So do you, just on a much smaller and slightly more edible scale.”

“Just slightly more edible,” Michael agrees. “Considering you work with, like… metal and hammers and things that make sparks fly, while I work with actual food intended for human consumption.”

Calum grins. “Yeah, that’s my job in a nutshell, you nailed it.”

Michael gives Calum’s calf a lazy kick. “Hey, I know you’re a welder, you know I’m a chef, and neither of us has any understanding whatsoever of what the other’s job actually entails, and I think that’s beautiful.”

“It is beautiful,” Calum agrees. “To answer your question, my bit should be done by late January, but we’ve had some problems with supplies not being delivered on time, so… we’ll see.”

“Love it when that happens,” Michael says, making a face. “People get weirdly feisty when there isn’t enough garlic in their food and they don’t care that it’s because there have been problems with the produce deliveries. Did you know that?”

“I did not, but thanks for informing me.” Stretching his arms over his head, Calum makes a pleased noise when his back cracks loudly before letting his body go completely lax. “Are you working this weekend?”

“No, next. Why?”

Calum shrugs. “Dunno, was thinking we could do something on Sunday. Go see a movie or head out to Bradley’s Head and walk to Chowder Bay or something, if you want? It’s been a while since we’ve done something together that wasn’t lounging on the couch. Or fucking.”

Michael smiles. “Not that I object to either couch lounging or fucking, but… yeah, that sounds nice. Last time I checked, there was nothing good in the cinema, though, so my vote’s on Bradley’s Head. Fresh air and all that crap.”

“I work outside most of the time, I get plenty of fresh air.”

“While I’m stuck in a kitchen surrounded by fumes and heat and… things.”

“You poor thing,” Calum coos. “Wanna stop somewhere on the way over and buy lunch, then? Make it a proper picnic?”

Michael knows he’s setting himself up for disappointment, that this little bubble is anything but permanent, but he still thinks that what Calum’s suggesting sounds an awful lot like a date. It’s another instance that makes it so easy for Michael to pretend, and he lets himself do it, because his masochistic tendencies know no bounds.

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

Michael’s never hated shopping, not even around Christmas time. He doesn’t mind the crowds, the bustling life, the truly ridiculous amount of decorations adorning every inch of every store, the Christmas music blasting from every corner. It’s alright, he reckons; festive, joyful, almost relaxing in a strange way. So he quite enjoys himself as he works his way through the list he made last night, picking up presents for his parents, for his grandparents, a couple of little somethings for his youngest cousins, for a couple of his coworkers, for Luke and Ashton, and for Calum. By the time he finishes and sits down at a café to grab a cinnabon and a cup of coffee, his arm muscles are aching and he’d rather not think about how much money he’s spent.

He’s just taken the first bite of his cinnabon when he hears his name being called out from somewhere to his right. Looking up, he spots Joy and Mali coming towards him, and he hurries to swallow and wipe his chin before he offers them a smile and a, “Hi!”

“Christmas shopping?” Mali asks as she takes in the bags surrounding Michael.

“What gave it away?” Michael says dryly, and Joy smiles while Mali laughs. “All done now, though. What about you two?”

“Oh, nothing in particular, just having a look around, see if anything catches our eyes,” Mali says.

“Any luck so far?” Michael asks.

Mali makes a face. “Not unless you count a dress that was so sparkly it could be seen from outer space.”

“And that left less to the imagination than an average bikini,” Joy supplies, and Michael snorts out a laugh. “Since I have you here, Michael, do you have any idea why Calum’s decided not to join us for Christmas Day?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s spending it with Luke and Ashton, we both are,” Michael says. “He didn’t tell you?”

“He said he wanted to spend the day with someone else this year,” Joy says. “I thought he’d finally met someone he wanted to date for more than two weeks and was being secretive about it.”

“There aren’t any special someones in his life right now that I know of,” Michael says, smiling faintly.

The smile Joy offers in return looks almost sorrowful. “He’ll get there one day, I’m sure,” she says. She maintains eye contact with Michael for a second or two longer than strictly necessary.

“Not at this rate, he won’t,” Mali says with a roll of her eyes. “Can hardly expect to find his one and only when he dates literally everything pretty that crosses his path, but doesn’t give any of them a proper chance before he breaks it off with them, can he?”

Though he doesn’t exactly disagree with the statement, Michael opts not to reply. It’s hardly a lie, is the thing, because Michael doubts if Calum has ever let a person with reasonably good looks pass him by without at least trying to make a move. Pushing aside his own feelings on the matter, he finds it both impressive and disturbing how easy it seems to be for Calum to chat random people up and, if he sees something in them that he likes, ask for their number or a chance to take them out. 

On occasion, Michael wonders if he’d be in his current predicament if he possessed the same quality.

He returns home a little before six in the afternoon, and spends thirty minutes wrapping all the presents and putting tags on them. As he’s busy stuffing the presents into individual bags, which he then puts in his bedroom, there’s a knock on his front door, swiftly followed by a loud, “You home?”

“No!” Michael calls back as he works on fitting the last bag in his closet.

“Too bad,” Calum says as he steps into the bedroom and leans back against the wall next to the door, crossing his arms over his chest. “I had kind of a crappy day, so I was gonna ask if you wanted to fuck.”

“You say the sweetest things,” Michael says flatly as he closes the closet door and turns to face Calum.

“Is that a no?” Calum asks.

It’s not a no, which is why Michael ends up on his back on the bed while Calum rides him with increasingly frantic rolls of his hips, head thrown back to expose his sweaty neck. Calum comes first with a breathless, “Fuck, Mikey, I– I’m coming,” pinching one of his nipples between his fingers while grinding his hips in desperate little circles, Michael’s fingers wrapped around his dick. An expression of utter bliss graces his face as he works through his climax, and the sight combined with the knowledge that _he_ was the one to give Calum that much pleasure, not to mention the tight clench of Calum’s ass around his dick, is what sends Michael over the edge. He groans out a combination of nonsense, curses and Calum’s name as he comes, and Calum writhes on top of him, oversensitive and too exhausted to do anything but slump forward against Michael’s chest and let his body be used.

They lie next to each other after, as they catch their breaths and wait for their slightly sweaty bodies to dry. An occasional semi-cool breeze seeps through the open window vis-à-vis the bed. Michael shivers at each gust, wishing he could be bothered to reach for the covers and pull them over both himself and Calum.

“Thanks for that,” Calum mumbles.

“Seems kinda weird to thank someone for sex,” Michael muses. “But you’re welcome. Wanna tell me why your day was so shitty you felt the need to have the shittiness fucked out of you?”

Calum grunts as he flips over to lie on his front, his head turned to face Michael. “Got a call from my boss this morning, he’s upping my hours until the project’s done. Ten hour days, six days a week. I get all of Christmas and New Year’s off, December 24th to January 2nd, plus Luke and Ash’s wedding weekend, and the overtime is nice, but still. _Then_ I knocked over a full pot of pasta sauce from the stove and it landed on my foot, which hurt, and I couldn’t be arsed to start over, so my dinner was two dry pieces of toast. And I have fifty tons of laundry waiting for me in the bathroom and I don’t wanna deal with it, and there may or may not be a hint of mold in my shower.”

Michael makes a sympathetic noise. “One of those days, huh? Just one thing after the other?”

“Yeah. Made for some pretty great sex, though,” Calum muses. “Do you mind if I stay here tonight? I don’t wanna go home and face the laundry or the mold or the pasta sauce.”

“What, you just left the pasta sauce on the floor?” Michael asks, and Calum whines. “Fucking hell, man, it’s gonna attract ants or some shit.”

“Yet another thing I’ll have to deal with,” Calum mutters, hugging the pillow under his head.

“Sorry. But… yeah, of course you can stay,” Michael says. He makes an effort to keep his voice relatively indifferent as to not reveal the burst of happiness thrumming through his veins. “Wanna order Chinese food for dinner, then? My treat. Dry toast sounds a little sad, especially since it’s Saturday.”

“In a bit, just wanna lie here for now,” Calum murmurs. “Your bed’s much better than mine.”

It takes all of Michael’s willpower to keep himself from saying, ‘ _You could enjoy it more if you stayed over more often than once every six months._ ’

The clock’s creeping towards nine p.m. by the time they drag themselves out of bed. Calum jumps in the shower while Michael orders the food, after which _Michael_ takes a shower while Calum waits for the food to arrive. They eat more lying down than sitting up, Calum not wearing a shirt and Michael only having bothered with underwear and an old, ratty tank top that he may or may not have had since he was fifteen. As he finishes up his fried noodles and puts the empty container on the coffee table, Michael thinks that if anyone were to walk in on them, they’d look like something out of an unnecessarily gross sitcom about two uni dude-bros living together. 

He says so out loud to Calum, who grins tiredly.

“I never went to uni, nor have I ever been anyone’s dude-bro, so that sounds like it could be fun,” he says.

“Luke and I hung out with a very dude-bro crowd every now and again in high school,” Michael says pensively. “It was weird. Too many very, very violent hugs and random tackles. Too much talk about boobs, too.”

“Well, boobs are nice, to be fair.”

“Sure, but trying to eat lunch while a group of hormonal morons rate the boobs of every girl in maths class wasn’t quite as nice.”

“Classy,” Calum says with a flat chuckle. “And you and Luke hung out with these guys because…?”

“Because we were sixteen and gay and a little terrified, so sticking with the seemingly straightest people in all of Australia felt like the best option,” Michael says with a wry smile. “It ended when– well, I’d told Luke a couple of days prior that I was sick of being closeted, and he took that as permission to kiss me rather violently in the middle of the cafeteria, just to make sure everyone saw. Guess he was sick of the closet, too.”

“He _what?_ ” Calum asks as he throws his head back, laughing loudly. “Why have I never heard that story?”

“Guess it never came up,” Michael says. “But yeah, that was the end of my experience with dude-bros.”

“Call me crazy, but I think you were better off for it.”

“Except for the fact that I have to live with the knowledge that Luke’s tongue has been in my mouth, things got better for us both after that, so… yeah.”

“Oooh, the kiss had tongue,” Calum says, still laughing as he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Does Ashton know about this?”

“No idea. If he doesn’t yet, but finds out somehow and is mad about it, I’ll be more than happy to tell him what an awful kisser his fiancé was at sixteen and that I’d sooner throw myself off the Harbour Bridge than relive the experience.”

“I think Luke would clock you if you told him that.”

Michael blows a raspberry. “Sounds absolutely terrifying.”

Calum opens his mouth to respond, but is promptly cut off by a yawn forcing its way out. “Think that’s my cue,” he says.

“I’ll come with you. That shopping trip wiped me out.”

“Did you get me a gift?” Calum asks as they stand up and start turning off the lights.

“No, you’ve been a bad boy this year,” Michael says. He checks that the door to his balcony is locked before he heads to the entrance hall to give the front door the same treatment.

“Oh, I’m a bad boy now, am I?” Calum asks, pressing himself up against Michael’s back as they walk into the bedroom. He wraps his arms around Michael from behind and leans in close to his ear, murmuring, “Wanna tell me more about it? Punish me for it? Spank me, maybe? Make me choke on your cock?”

“Since when are you into that stuff?” Michael asks, and he both loves and hates that despite the exhaustion that has long since settled in his bones, his dick gives a slight twitch of interest.

Biting down at the juncture between Michael’s neck and shoulder, Calum pulls back and sheds what little clothes he’s wearing before he slides into bed and pulls the covers over himself. “Since when am I into dirty talk?” he asks as he watches Michael crawl in next to him. “Since… literally the day I discovered what dirty talk was.”

“No, the punishment-part,” Michael says, giving Calum’s cheek a light poke. “Thought you liked roughing _me_ up, not the other way around.”

“Eh, I can be flexible,” Calum says with an easy grin.

“Not literally, you can’t. Remember when you wanted to try that… thoroughly fucked up position last year and you damn near dislocated your knee?”

“Poor judgement on my part, but we live and learn.”

“And that day we both learned that awkward situations during sex are not only for the young and inexperienced.”

“It could be worse, though,” Calum says. “I mean, there’s always a certain risk that stuff’s gonna come out when one takes it up the ass, right? And we have yet to have that happen, so I–”

“Oh, gross,” Michael cuts in loudly, groaning. “Please don’t.”

Calum rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Hey, what’s the most awkward–”

“No.”

“I didn’t even finish the question!”

Michael quirks an unimpressed eyebrow. “I’m tired and so are you, and I’m not gonna lie here and tell you about the most awkward situation I’ve ever been in during sex.”

Flipping over on his side with a flurry of overly dramatic movements and sounds, Calum sticks his tongue out at Michael over his shoulder. “Fine, just be like that.”

“I will, thank you,” Michael says as he gets comfortable on his side, facing Calum’s back. He reaches for the light switch over his head and flips it, plunging the room into instant darkness. With his sight being taken away for the time being, Michael’s suddenly more aware of the presence of Calum’s body next to him. Slowly, a little hesitant, he slides closer and places a hand on Calum’s waist under the covers. There’s no reaction, and Michael chances at slipping his arm forward until he has a hand splayed over Calum’s stomach. 

Coughing weakly, he asks, “Is this okay?”

“If you have to,” Calum mumbles, and it sounds like he’s already half-asleep.

Michael stills and rolls his lips. “If I have to,” he repeats with a chuckle that he hopes emits less disappointment than it feels like as it makes its way up his throat. “The idea of kinda-spooning with me is that unpleasant, huh?”

Calum snuffles. “Of course not. I just… I don’t know. Whatever. Go ahead.”

Pursing his lips, Michael shakes his head for no one’s benefit than his own. “No, I… no, nevermind. It’s fine.”

Withdrawing his arm, he shuffles away from Calum until there’s half a metre or so of space between them. It could might as well be half a mile, Michael thinks; what does it matter when Calum doesn’t want the affection Michael so desperately wants to give him, and preferably also be given in return? Curling in on himself, he closes his eyes and tries to make himself breathe normally by sheer force of will. Maybe it would have worked if he was a more strong willed specimen. Then again, if he was a strong willed specimen, he doubts Calum would be here right now, and thus there would be no need for Michael to use his will to be able to breathe like a normal human being.

“I can actually hear you thinking over there,” says Calum’s sleepy voice. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry,” Michael says. “I’ll try and keep my… thinking down.”

The mattress shifts and the sheets rustle as Calum rolls over to lie on his other side, facing Michael. “Or you could tell me what you’re thinking about and be done with it,” he says. When Michael doesn’t say anything, he breathes slowly in through his nose. “Is it about the spooning-thing?”

Michael’s suddenly quite grateful that the room is bathed in darkness and that they can’t see each other, because his face heats up at the question. “Sorry,” he mumbles, fisting the covers over his chest. “Not to be… you know, needy or clingy or anything, but…” 

“But what?”

Michael chews at the inside of his lip. “I never really date.”

Silent beat. “Yeah, I know… What about it?”

Michael sighs, dragging a hand over his face. “I haven’t been on a date in months and I haven’t slept with anyone but you in even longer, so you’re kinda my only source for… cuddles and shit.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that…” Calum trails off, falling silent for a beat. “Does it bother you?”

A lengthy rant of a response hangs at the tip of Michael’s tongue, and he keeps his lips firmly shut to keep it from falling out. “No, it’s– not necessarily, but I’m fucking human and I miss it every now and again, you know?” he says when he trusts himself to speak again. “You’re rarely willing to… you know, with me for more than twenty seconds at the time and even those instances are few and far between, so I– Jesus…” Squeezing his eyes shut, he finishes with a muttered, “Yeah, it bothers me sometimes.”

Calum goes completely still, so still it’s like he’s not even breathing. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “I haven’t really… considered that.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” Michael says with a smile that Calum can hopefully hear.

The room falls into silence, but only for a short while. “Big spoon or little spoon?”

“What?”

“Big spoon or little spoon, Mikey?”

“It’s fine, Cal, you don’t have to. Just go to sleep.”

“I know I don’t have to, but you sound kinda miserable, and you’re my best friend and I want you to be happy, so… big spoon or little spoon?”

Although Michael thinks it sounds an awful lot like Calum’s taking pity on him, what he’s up against is an offer he in no shape or form is able to refuse. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he mumbles, “Either is fine.”

“You be big spoon, then,” Calum says before he turns back over and moves his body backwards until his back is pressed against Michael’s front. 

Hesitating for no more than a fraction of a second, Michael wraps one arm around Calum’s waist and pulls him as close to his own body as physically possible, hiding his face in the nape of Calum’s neck. He feels Calum’s heartbeat under his hand, strong and steady, and he focuses on that along with the familiar scent of his own shampoo mixed with something that’s pure Calum.

“That hard up for it, were you?” Calum asks, but it doesn’t sound mocking. Michael makes a quizzical noise, and Calum adds, “You’re sniffing me and kinda squeezing the air out of me.”

“Sorry,” Michael chuckles, loosening his hold a little. “Better?”

“Better,” Calum confirms. “I’m really sorry I’ve never taken this into consideration, though. Guess I just… get my fill whenever I’m seeing someone. Never occurred to me that you don’t, since… well, like you said, you don’t really date a lot. Or at all.”

“It’s fine,” Michael says, placing a slightly hesitant kiss on Calum's shoulder. “I don’t expect it all the time or anything. Just maybe once in a while, for example when you stay over. Or when I stay over at yours.”

“That happens, like, once every three months. Not even that maybe.”

“Like I said, I don’t expect it all the time. Or, I mean, I don’t expect it at all, but… you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Calum says softly. “We’re good, right?”

Of all the answers Michael could give to that question – and the options are many – he goes with the one that is the least truthful, but also the most harmless. 

“We’re good.”

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

The path from Bradleys Head to Chowder Bay is less crowded than what Michael expected on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Granted, he doesn’t have much experience with the area despite having grown up in relative proximity to it, but on a subconscious level, he’s always assumed that a walk this scenic would be filled with families and elderly couples and joggers on nice days. They only pass someone every now and again, though, and for the most part, they walk in silence while the trees keep their ears filled with soothing sounds of rustling leaves.

“We probably just got lucky,” Calum says when Michael voices his thoughts as they sit down on a patch of grass overlooking the water, the city visible beyond it. “There are usually more people around, but guess we hit a lull.”

Accepting the wrapped sandwich and the can of Coke that Calum hands him from his backpack, Michael shrugs. “I’m not complaining. I don’t mind crowds, but I don’t mind the silence either.”

Taking a bite of his own sandwich and swallowing, Calum nods, his gaze fixed on the water. “It’s nice, yeah,” he says absentmindedly. “So… have you been seeing anyone lately?”

Surprised by the change of topic, Michael stills mid-chew as he turns his head to look at Calum. “Obviously not,” he says once he’s swallowed. “Slept with you yesterday, didn’t I? My lack of dates even came up in conversation after we went to bed.”

Calum hums. “Right, yeah. Just figured I’d ask.”

“Sure. I’m not dating anyone, no, probably won’t for the foreseeable future,” Michael says. It’s thought provoking, he thinks, how casual the words come out despite the invisible weight they carry. Thought provoking and more than just a little bit pathetic. “You?”

Lips curving up in a small smile, Calum echoes Michael with a soft, “Slept with you yesterday, didn’t I?”

Michael smiles back, shaking his head once. “That you did.”

“Just you and me for the time being,” Calum says as he flings an arm around Michael’s shoulders and plants a kiss on his cheek. “Could be worse, couldn’t it?”

Leaning into the embrace, Michael hums. “Reckon it could be a lot worse. At least we’re getting laid, right?”

“And we get picnic dates by the water,” Calum says. “Don’t forget about that. It’s borderline romantic.”

Michael closes his eyes. “Borderline romantic,” he repeats. 

Calum doesn’t answer, nor does he move, and they finish their sandwiches and drinks in silence. 

Among all the things that cause him pain when it comes to Calum, Michael thinks that this might be the worst – believing with every fibre of his being, and having that belief proven time and time again, that they would make a good couple. A great couple. For all intents and purposes, they already are one. The only difference is that there’s no label and that the romantic feelings are likely one-sided and that Calum dates everyone in Sydney except for Michael. A set of rather important differences, perhaps, but none of them change the fact that Michael and Calum had sex last night, then had dinner together, then fell asleep back to front, had a late breakfast together this morning, and now they’re having lunch by the water, just the two of them.

It feels domestic. It feels romantic. Not _borderline romantic_. No, it feels romantic, period, and Michael wonders if Calum really can’t see it. If that’s the case, he wonders how that’s humanly possible for any functioning adult.

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

The morning of Christmas Day is a lazy affair for Michael. He doesn’t get up until the clock shows five past ten, then spends a solid hour on his couch with a bowl of increasingly soggy cereal in his lap and his phone in the other, scrolling mindlessly through one app after the other. His mum calls around noon to wish him a happy Christmas, then his dad does the same right before one o’clock, and it’s not until Michael drops his phone after the latter that he realises he’s in something of a rush to get ready if he wants to be at Luke and Ashton’s by two. It’s blazing hot outside, hot enough to ensure that Michael’s rendered sweaty less than thirty seconds after he emerges from the shower.

Christmas or not, he opts against any type of formal wear, instead deciding on a pair of denim shorts and a tank top. Even that feels like a stretch, and as he gathers everything he needs for the day, presents and a backpack with overnight necessities included, he thinks to himself that if he could, he’d just spend the whole goddamned day naked.

It’s twenty minutes to two when Calum barges in with a shout of, “Merry Christmas!”

Smiling to himself, Michael exits the bedroom with his backpack in one hand and an overfilled plastic bag with gifts in the other. Calum’s standing in the entrance hall, wearing more or less the same outfit as Michael, and looking just as sweaty.

“Yeah, yeah, merry Christmas,” Michael says as he flings the backpack onto his back and drops the bag to the floor to get his shoes on.

Calum waits until they’re by the elevator before he speaks up. “Do we drive?”

“I don’t know?”

“Are we gonna drink?”

Michael throws his free hand up. “I don’t know! I brought what I need to stay over if it comes to it and it looks like you did, too–” He gestures to the backpack Calum’s carrying “–so can’t we just drive and if we do end up drinking, we’ll hog their guest bedroom for the night? Ash will cook us breakfast in the morning and all, it’s a solid plan.”

“Oh, now there’s an idea,” Calum muses. “Okay. My car or yours?”

Rolling his eyes, Michael steps into the elevator and waits for Calum to do the same before he pushes the button that’ll take them to the ground floor. “Do you have your car keys on you?” he asks as the elevator descends. “Because I don’t, so if you do, you’re driving.”

“A long, harrowing journey is ahead, all fifteen minutes on Sydney’s disastrous streets,” Calum says. The elevator dings and they step out, heading out of the building. “But yeah, my car keys are on my keychain, so I’ve got them. Come on.”

The drive to Luke and Ashton’s can hardly be called harrowing, but it’s somewhat exhausting on account of Calum spending the entirety of it belting Christmas carols at the top of his lungs. It’s horribly off-key, his voice cracks more than once, he only knows half the lyrics, and Michael is so completely and utterly endeared that he can’t stop smiling by the time they pull up in the driveway. They unload their bags filled with gifts, along with their respective backpacks, before they stroll into the house without bothering to ring the doorbell.

Ashton and Luke are in the backyard, busy setting up a somewhat overly decadent lunch, considering they’re only four people. Overly decadent or not, Michael’s mouth still waters as he takes in the miscellaneously prepared prawns, the garlic bread, the green salad, the creamy broccoli salad, the potato wedges and the roast beef, all of which Ashton is busy trying to fit on the outdoor dining table while Luke is working on getting a fire started on the barbeque.

“Not that this doesn’t look fucking amazing,” Michael starts as he grabs a prawn cocktail from the table and gives Ashton a one-armed hug from behind, “but it also looks more like dinner than lunch. I’d have been happy with the prawns alone.”

“I wouldn’t,” Luke says, swiftly followed by a part triumphant, part horrified shriek when flames suddenly rise from the grill. Making sure the fire isn’t about to engulf the entire yard, he hugs Michael and Calum in turn before grinning, straightening the santa hat on his head and saying, “Merry Christmas, good to see you and all, but you oughta be careful to just walk into other people’s houses without announcing yourselves.”

“Oh, please,” Michael dismisses while Calum heads inside to put their gifts under the tree. “You’re, like, three weeks away from getting married, you stopped having anything but boring, scheduled, passionless, missionary style sex years ago.”

Luke looks anything but impressed. “I _meant_ that we might get spooked and hit you over the head with a bat, you fucking–”

“Play nice now, it’s Christmas and we should all show each other love and compassion,” Ashton cuts in.

“How many of those have you had?” Michael snorts, gesturing towards the joint in Ashton’s hand.

“I’ll have you know it’s my first one,” Ashton says.

Michael cocks his head to the side and fishes a prawn out of the cocktail, putting it in his mouth. “So… you’ve had a heat stroke, then?” he asks as he chews.

“You’ve been here for two minutes and you’ve already been disgusting in two different ways,” Luke says. “Gotta be some type of record, even for you.”

Calum returns then and he steals a prawn from Michael. “What record?” he asks.

“I’m being more disgusting than ever before,” Michael says. “I didn’t know anyone was keeping count, but apparently Luke has nothing better to do with his free time, so there you go.”

Luke sticks his tongue out. “Well, according to you, my sex life has been dead for years, so _obviously_ I have nothing better to do. Gotta find joy somewhere, don’t I, if not in my fiancé’s dick?”

Ashton nips at his cider. Calum makes a face that exudes both confusion and disgust at the same time. Michael sighs deeply.

It’s a close call, but they make it through lunch outside without anyone passing out. Ashton runs inside the moment everyone’s finished eating, though, and they all watch him lie down on the floor underneath the aircon. While Michael and Calum laugh, Luke gets up and heads inside and kneels next to Ashton, presumably to check that he isn’t about to pass out.

“I think that’s our cue to start clearing the table,” Calum says as he rises to his feet.

Michael grunts and leans further into his chair, tipping his head back. “You do it, I’ll wait here.”

It’s a testament to how much Calum loves him that his only response to Michael’s refusal to do anything is a roll of his eyes. It might not be the love Michael wants, but it’s sure as hell better than nothing at all, and Michael isn’t about to pass it up. He’ll take what he can get, even if what he gets is a small band-aid to heal a wound in dire need of stitches.

The afternoon comes and goes, and they end up skipping dinner altogether in favour of eating leftovers from lunch when they get hungry again. Gifts are being unwrapped while the sun sets, and if Michael has to swallow down a lump in his throat when he realises that Calum’s gotten him the knife set he mentioned once, months and months ago, that he wanted, then no one has to know. Neither Ashton nor Luke seem to notice, anyway, being more preoccupied with the new, engraved engagement rings that Ashton presented Luke with ten minutes prior.

It’s absolutely fucking disgustingly sweet, and Michael’s jealous beyond belief.

Michael has no idea whose idea it was to watch _The Holiday_ , but when the clock strikes eleven, they’re halfway through it, and Michael finds himself far more invested than he ought to be.

“How have you never seen it before?” Ashton asks from where he’s lying between Luke’s legs, his back leaned against Luke’s front. A bag of chips is resting in his lap.

Michael shrugs. “Never been one for romcoms.”

“Tell me about it,” Luke mutters. “I spent my teenage years watching romcoms by myself. It was sad, Michael.”

“Not my fault you were too weird to find another friend. Or a date to watch them with you.”

Luke sticks his tongue out at Michael. “You could have dated me. I was as cute then as I am now. We could have been a great couple. I mean, look at us, we’re still friends after all these years.”

Snorting, Michael shakes his head. “Thanks, but I’m stuffed and you saying shit like that makes me wanna throw up.”

“Rude,” Luke grunts.

“‘S okay, princess, I’ll watch romcoms with you every day if you want me to,” Ashton chimes in, giving Luke’s cheek a clumsy pat over his shoulder.

“For the rest of your life,” Calum says absentmindedly, eyes glued to his phone. “Keep that in mind before the ‘I do’, yeah?”

Michael grins at Luke’s disgruntled grimace.

“What’s up with your phone?” Ashton asks Calum. “It’s late and it’s been pinging constantly for fifteen minutes. That many people keen on wishing you a merry Christmas?”

“No, it’s Frederick,” Calum says as he types away. 

Michael freezes. He has no idea who Frederick is, and that’s the problem; he’s met all of Calum’s friends, knows the names of all of Calum’s coworkers that matter to his personal life, and he’s never heard the name Frederick before. And he knows what that means.

“Who’s Frederick?” Luke asks, sparing Michael of having to say anything.

“Met him when I was on my lunch break last Wednesday, he works at that deli around the corner from the construction site, next to the flower shop.” Sending the text he’s been working on, Calum puts his phone down as he averts his gaze to look at Ashton, Luke and Michael in turn. “We got talking about our jobs while he made my sandwich and bonded over our hatred for overbearing bosses, and he was cute and fun, so I asked him for his number. We’re having coffee on Sunday.”

No one says anything right away. Michael stares at Calum, and he can feel Luke’s eyes burning a hole in the side of his neck. He feels like he’s thirteen again and his up-until-then lovely Christmas was shattered by his parents telling him that they were getting a divorce. While the situation currently at hand is a completely different one, his chest feels just as tight as it did that day, and every ounce of holiday spirit and good mood in him evaporates, leaving him feeling numb from head to toe.

It’s Ashton who breaks the silence in the end. “That’s great, Cal,” he says. “Hope it goes well. Fingers crossed, yeah?”

Calum smiles widely. “Yeah, thanks. Just gotta go to the bathroom. I should probably call my mum, too. Be back in a bit.” He stands up and disappears into the house, and Michael looks at his back until he’s out of sight.

“What the fuck, Ash?” Luke hisses the moment Calum’s out of hearing range. “ _’That’s great, Cal, hope it goes well!’_ Are you an actual idiot?”

Ashton smiles thinly. “I’m marrying you, so the answer to that question is clearly yes.”

If looks could kill, Michael reckons Ashton would drop dead when Luke sets his eyes in him. “You’re not supposed to support Calum and his eternal quest for love when Michael–”

“What am I supposed to do, then, Luke?” Ashton cuts in, an exasperated edge to his voice. Looking at Michael, he offers a smile. “I know this all sucks for you, okay? And I sympathise, I do, but until you actually tell him how you feel, I can’t go around and be mad at him. He doesn’t even know he’s doing anything wrong.”

“Oh, come on,” Luke whines. “How can he not know? He shags Michael for fun when he’s single, and the moment he starts dating someone, he throws Michael out like week-old leftovers. How is that decent behavior?”

“Thanks, Luke,” Michael says dryly.

“Like I said: He doesn’t know he’s doing anything wrong,” Ashton says. “Honestly, I think he’s going about it in a pretty decent way.”

Luke gapes. “What?”

Sighting, Ashton sits up in his chair. “Look, Cal’s a serial dater, he has been for as long as we’ve known him. But he doesn’t date more than one person at once, he always breaks things off face to face if he’s not feeling it with the person in question, he never sleeps with Michael while he’s dating someone else, and as far as he knows, Michael’s okay with how things are.”

“Yeah, and?” Luke demands.

“ _And_ , if he knew what was going on and he still acted this way, we’d be having a whole different conversation,” Ashton says patiently. “But he doesn’t know, he has no idea that Michael has feelings for him or is in love with him or whatever the deal is, and until he finds out, whether that happens tomorrow or in ten years, it wouldn’t be fair of us to do anything but support him.”

Luke stares at Ashton for a few seconds, then shifts his gaze to Michael and his eyes go wide, as if pleading for Michael to disagree with Ashton. When Michael just smiles weakly and shakes his head, Luke huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. “Fine,” he snaps. “Let’s all have a holly jolly Christmas while Calum sexts in our bathroom and Michael’s heart is breaking right in front of us. Amazing. I hate all of you.”

Ashton strokes the back of Luke’s head, and says to Michael, “As you can see, we’ve gotten a head start on our divorce.”

“Yeah, well, divorce happens to a lot of married couples sooner or later,” Michael says, raising his Coke in a silent toast. “Might as well get it out of the way.”

“Or we just won’t get married at all,” Luke says sourly. “That’d make the whole breakup-process a lot easier. Less paperwork.”

“Except we own this house and everything in it together,” Ashton says.

“My clothes are mine. And that one blanket on the couch. If you’re willing to give me a cardboard box, I can live in that until I find something better.”

Ashton nods. “Sure, princess, I’ll give you a cardboard box. Pay for it with a kiss?”

Though his eyes are still stormy, Luke’s lips twitch with the tiniest hint of a smile before he leans in and plants a kiss that looks far too sweet on Ashton’s lips. “It better be a big box,” he says when he pulls back.

“The biggest,” Ashton promises. Turning back to Michael, he asks, “You okay?”

Michael shrugs. “No, but what else is new? Didn’t expect him to dump that kind of information on me today, of all days, but like you said, it’s not like he knows what he’s doing, so… I can hardly be mad at him, can I?”

“Yes, you can,” Luke says.

Michael shakes his head. “No, I can’t. I can be mad at the _situation_ , but I’ve pretty much brought it on myself by never being honest with him, so… it’s fine. I’ll be fine. Always am. And I guess this at least explains why he hasn’t expressed any interest in having sex whenever we’ve seen each other lately. Should’ve known.”

“I think it’s called denial,” Ashton says, and while the words are a tad harsh, his voice is kind. “Let’s just try and focus on something else, yeah?”

Calum returns after twenty minutes, give or take, by which time Ashton has rolled two ridiculously generous joints. Darkness has long since fallen, the burning sunlight replaced by cold, glittering stars high above them, and they sit side by side on the patio out back while they smoke. Luke and Ashton fall into an intimate, mumbling conversation, occasionally interrupted by a kiss or a drag of their shared joint, and Michael only finds it reasonable to let his head drop to Calum’s shoulder as he puffs out a cloud of smoke, then hands the joint to Calum.

Michael could fall asleep right there, while his side is aligned with Calum’s, and with the dark blue sky hanging over them like a sparkly blanket. He accepts the joint when Calum hands it back to him and takes one, two, three deep drags in quick succession before he throws what’s left to the ground and stomps it out. 

A little dizzy, he rubs his face against Calum’s shoulder and giggles softly. “Getting stoned to celebrate Christmas. Mum would be ashamed of me.”

“Wanna go bake cookies instead?” Calum asks, his voice is a tad deeper than usual. Like it is after he’s spent too much time with Michael’s dick down his throat, Michael can’t help but think.

Michael snuffles. “Cookies sound good. Is there any? In the kitchen, maybe?”

“Not a chance,” Calum says. “Baked goods never last more than five hours in this house.”

“Fucking Luke and his bottomless pit of a stomach.”

“Fucking Ash and his adoration for midnight snacks.” Calum noses at the top of Michael’s head, breathing in deeply before letting it back out with a hum. “Wanna go to bed?”

“Sleepy?”

“No.” Calum slips an arm around Michael’s waist as he plants a kiss at Michael’s temple. “Just wanna go to bed. With you.”

Stoned or not, Michael’s far from being so gone he doesn’t understand what Calum’s getting at. He is, however, far enough gone to agree with a choked, “Please,” without a second thought. Allowing Calum to help him to his feet, he pauses for a moment to turn around and look at Luke and Ashton. They seem to be on an entirely different planet, lost in each other and whatever their whispering conversation is concerning, so he doesn’t feel too bad for leaving them there without bidding them goodnight.

Barely paying attention to their surroundings, Michael leads the way up the stairs to the second floor and through the door to the guest bedroom. The bed’s already made with fresh sheets, he notices when he falls over backwards onto it, bouncing lightly against the mattress. Calum stands by the foot end of the bed, looking down at Michael while his chest rises and falls in a steady, but rapid rhythm.

“Love looking at you,” he says after a bit as his eyes rake up and down Michael’s body, pupils blown wide. “You’re just… you’re… yeah.”

It’s barely anything at all. Michael’s not sure if it can even be called a compliment. But his brain interprets it as one nonetheless, and his heart accepts it. Yanking off his tank top and throwing it to the floor, he scoots up on the bed until his head is resting on one of the pillows before he asks, “You coming?”

Calum gets on the bed, kneeling between Michael’s spread legs. For a bit, he just looks at Michael. At his face, more specifically. It doesn’t take Michael more than a few seconds to start squirming under the intensity of the scrutiny, and he’s grateful when Calum stoops down and kisses him. The familiarity of the situation does nothing to slow down the rush of heat and desire that flows through Michael’s veins on its way to his heart. Something similar seems to be going on inside Calum; his hands are grasping frantically at every inch of Michael he can reach as the kiss deepens, becoming needy and a bit sloppy as their bodies move effortlessly against each other until they’re both hard in their shorts.

Breaking the kiss, Michael buries his face in Calum’s neck before he mumbles, “Should we be doing this? You’re seeing someone.”

Calum’s exhale is shaky as he rubs his forehead against Michael’s shoulder. “Haven’t really started seeing him yet, and I want _you_ ,” he whispers, his fingers catching on the hemline of Michael’s short. “Want you so badly, Mikey, any way you’ll have me.”

Michael’s not sure how stoned Calum is, nor does he know how stoned he himself is, but the end result is nevertheless that he’s lying flat on his front while Calum pushes into him, inch by inch, until he’s buried to the hilt. What’s something of a surprise is that for once, Calum decides to take his time; he plasters himself against Michael’s back as he works his hips in slow, controlled movements, and Michael whimpers quietly every time Calum pushes back inside. When Calum suddenly reaches out and intertwines his fingers with Michael’s, it adds another element to the situation that’s never been present before. An element of intimacy and affection that makes Michael skin burn like embers brought back to life from a dying campfire.

He bites down on the pillow when a number of embarrassing words threaten to tumble out, but clings onto Calum’s hand as their bodies move together in perfect sync. Calum ducks his head to kiss the back of Michael’s neck. His lips linger there for a bit before he raises one hand and grabs a gentle hold of Michael’s hair, pulling at it to make Michael turn his head to the side. 

Michael’s more than a little surprised when he complies and suddenly finds himself being kissed, because he doesn’t think he and Calum have ever kissed _while_ fucking before, only before and after. It’s a welcome surprise, though, and he gasps into Calum’s mouth as he starts pushing his hips into the mattress, giving his dick some much needed friction.

Calum’s hips stutter and he lets out a whisper of Michael’s name as he picks up his pace ever so slightly. “So good, Mikey,” he murmurs, punctuating the praise with a quick kiss to Michael’s lips. “Always so good for me…”

Grinding down, Michael’s dick catches on the sheets, and he drops his head back onto the pillow as his stomach clenches. He repeats the motion a number of times, each one followed by a moan while white hot heat slowly unfurls within him. Screwing his eyes shut, he gasps, “I’m– I’m gonna– I’m so close, Cal,” as he starts working his hips with more intent.

“Yeah, me too,” Calum breathes before he closes his lips around a spot on Michael’s neck and starts sucking on the sensitive skin. His fingers tighten where they’re still intertwined with Michael’s, pressing down to keep himself up while his other hand grips onto Michael’s waist, and he fucks into Michael with increasing franticness as the seconds tick by.

It builds slowly inside Michael, halting every other beat or so before it continues to rise, and it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna stop rising. He feels dizzy and strangely weak from it, and when Calum licks a long stripe from the bottom of his neck and up to his ear, tears spring to his eyes and he lets out a sound close to a sob.

“Oh my God,” he chokes as he starts coming apart. “Oh God, oh God, shit, Cal, I’m coming, I–”

“Come for me, baby, come on, come on,” Calum groans, and Michael can both feel and hear that he’s barely holding it together.

Michael’s orgasm hits him like a punch in the face, temporarily depriving him of all senses. He shakes uncontrollably as his cock spurts between his stomach and the mattress, a constant stream of raw moans spilling over his parted lips as Calum fucks him through it. He’s still mid-climax when Calum forces his head to the side and connects their lips in a hard kiss. Slamming in a final time, Calum stills almost completely, hips barely jerking as he breaks the kiss and comes with a desperate moan that sends another wave of pleasure Michael’s way.

“Jesus fucking Christ, that was… yeah,” Calum mumbles when a few seconds have passed, and though he’s still lying on top of Michael, his voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere far away, and the words barely register.

Michael’s head feels oddly foggy, matching the limp sensation that’s hanging onto his muscles, and all he can manage to respond with is a soft grunt. An almost violent shiver crackles through him when Calum gets up, exposing Michael's overheated, sweaty body to the cool air in the room, and he makes a pitiful sound, but can’t find the strength nor presence of mind to move. His ears vaguely register the sounds of Calum leaving the room, and the realisation that he’s left completely alone weirdly enough makes his eyes well up with tears. They don’t fall, luckily, but they sting, and Michael inhales sharply as his body’s attacked by another round of shivers.

Calum returns after a bit, a towel in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. He frowns when he lays eyes on Michael’s unmoving body. “You okay?” he asks as he puts the water down on the nightstand and lies down next to Michael.

Michael opens his mouth, but he can’t seem to get a single word out, so he closes it again and stares up at Calum with wet eyes, silently begging him to understand. The problem is that Michael isn’t entirely sure what there is to understand; all he knows is that he fucking needs… _something_.

“Shit, did I hurt you?” Calum asks, his eyes frantic as they drift up and down Michael’s body a couple of times. He drags his fingers gently along the side of Michael’s face, and Michael’s eyes flutter shut immediately and he sinks into the touch. Albeit still not sure what’s happening, he can feel himself slowly regain some control over his body while Calum continues to stroke his face, occasionally pausing at the top to comb through his hair.

“Can you please say something?” Calum asks. “You’re starting to scare me. Are you hurt? Do you need something?”

“Just… stay,” Michael whispers; it feels like a lot of effort.

“Well, yeah, I’m kinda sleeping in this bed tonight, so…” Calum smiles crookedly as he trails off. He scoots closer to Michael and pulls him in close to his own body, cradling Michael’s head where it’s tucked under his chin.

It helps, Michael thinks, to focus on the grounding effect of Calum’s heartbeat, and on the comfortably familiar heat of Calum's soft skin enveloping his own body. It takes what could either be one minute or one hour, but he finds his way back to reality at some point, though he still opts not to move nor speak up immediately. Selfish as it is, it feels good to be held so closely, to have his hair played with, and to have an arm locked securely around his waist. He doesn’t want it to end quite yet.

As all things in life, though, it has to end. Michael places his hand flat against Calum’s chest and sucks his bottom lip in between his teeth for a moment before he opens his mouth. “Sorry about that,” he mumbles. “Not sure what happened.”

“It’s okay, as long as _you’re_ okay,” Calum says, and he sounds relieved. “You really don’t know what happened?”

“I really don’t,” Michael says with a dry chuckle. “Kinda felt like… you know when you just zone out completely and everything around you goes blurry and you feel all sluggish and weird, but not in a bad way?” Calum hums in confirmation. “It felt like that, except I couldn’t break out of it. The touching helped, though.”

“Good to know, in case it happens again,” Calum says. He presses a kiss to the top of Michael’s head before he frees himself carefully and flops over to lie on his back.

Stretching his limbs, Michael reaches for the double doona and throws it over them both. There’s a wet spot underneath him, but he neither has the will nor energy to do anything about it. He does, however, make a mental note to throw the sheets in the washer in the morning. As if on cue, his phone vibrates on the nightstand and he reaches for it, only to discover a text from Luke.

‘ _don’t EVER force us to listen to that again!!!_ ’

Michael snorts and shows it to Calum, who grins. “Didn’t think they could hear us,” he says. “He has to be talking about you, though, right? Pretty sure I wasn’t that loud.”

“You were loud enough,” Michael says before he types out a quick, ‘ _sorry!_ ’ to Luke and puts his phone away.

Turning over to face Michael, Calum shrugs. “Not as loud as you.”

Michael rolls his eyes. “It was good, I had other things to focus on than my… volume.”

“Hm, yeah. It was good,” Calum says. He lays his head on Michael’s pillow, kissing his shoulder. “More so than usual, even. A last hurrah for a while, I guess.”

Letting his eyelids slip shut, Michael nods. “Yeah.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have–”

“Too late now, Cal,” Michael says; he doesn’t wanna hear it, doesn’t wanna hear that Calum regrets what Michael is pretty sure was the best sex he’s ever had. Despite his heart having grown a hard protective shell, there are still limits as to how many beatings it can take in one day. “We did it, we can’t take it back, and I really don’t wanna think about you and your next attempt at finding love when I’m naked in bed with you.”

Calum’s quiet for a few beats before he speaks. “Since when is that a problem?”

“What, you think I’ve ever been directly okay with it?” Michael asks before he can stop himself. Clenching his teeth, he rolls over to face away from Calum. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just go to sleep.”

“No, I– come on,” Calum says, laying a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Are you mad at me? You’ve never said anything when I talked about those things, so I just figured you were fine with it.”

“Well, I’m not,” Michael snaps. “I don’t know how things work in your head, but having to listen to the guy you just shagged telling you about the guys he _wants_ to shag isn’t all that great.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever talked to you about who I want to shag.”

Michael laughs, a curt, incredulous sound. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he asks. “Okay, let me rephrase: Having to listen to the guy I just shagged talk about the guys he wants to _date_ isn’t all that great.”

“So… I can’t talk to you about the people I date?”

While he can’t actually do it, Michael would quite like to shout that no, not unless said people is _him_. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just tired, I didn’t mean to lash out,” he therefore says instead. “Can we go to sleep, please?”

Calum sighs and lets go of Michael’s shoulder, scooting backwards until their bodies are no longer in contact with each other. “Sure, yeah,” he says. “Night, Mikey.”

Michael doesn’t trust his voice enough to dare uttering a response, so he just makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. Fisting the doona over his chest, he feels the way he’s boiling from the inside out with a jumbled mess of emotions; fear, disappointment, sadness, anger. His skin feels hot and cold at the same time, and though he’s never been much for cigarettes, he’d quite like one right now. If he’s not entirely mistaken, Ashton keeps a carton in one of the drawers in the kitchen for particularly stressful situations. If almost confessing one’s feelings to one’s best friend doesn’t count as a stressful situation, Michael doesn’t know what does, so he rises from the bed, ignoring Calum’s questions as he throws on his shorts and leaves the bedroom.

The kitchen isn’t as deserted as Michael hoped. Sitting by the dining table is Luke, wearing pyjama bottoms and a concentrated frown as he roots through a stack of papers in front of him. He looks up when Michael enters, and the concentration gives way for surprise.

“Leftovers are in the fridge if you’re looking for some post-coital snacks,” he says with a lazy smirk that goes well with his red-rimmed eyes.

Shaking his head, Michael opens the top drawer next to the dishwasher, and as suspected, he finds a pack of Marlboro Golds there. Fishing a cigarette out of the packet, he grabs a lighter from the drawer before he leaves the kitchen in favour of the living room, where he slides open the door leading out to the back yard. He sits down on the edge of the porch, feet planted on the grass in front, and lights the cigarette. It smells and his lungs are protesting weakly, but he’s gotten used to it, sorta likes it, by the third drag.

Not entirely surprisingly, Luke finds him there shortly after. He doesn’t say anything, just sits down next to Michael and lights a cigarette of his own.

“Since when do you smoke?” Michael asks.

“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” Luke says as he puffs out a cloud of smoke.

Michael smiles weakly. “Since I almost came clean to Calum ten minutes ago on an angry whim, and it freaked me the fuck out.”

“Oh…” Luke breathes. “I reckon that’d prompt anyone to engage in some bad habits. What happened? How do you go from sex to angry meltdowns in, like, fifteen minutes?”

Tapping at the cigarette to get rid of the excess ashes at the tip, Michael says, “It wasn’t a meltdown. We just… it doesn’t matter.”

“Like hell it doesn’t,” Luke says sharply. “Come on, tell me.”

Taking another drag, Michael lets the smoke fill his lungs completely before he lets it back out. “I told him I don’t like it when he mentions his dates when we’re in bed together, and he got all confused and I got mad because he got confused, and… yeah. You get the point.”

“He talks to you about his dates when you’re in bed together?” Luke sounds borderline disgusted, and Michael can’t help but chuckle. “Fucking hell… that’s just poor manners, isn’t it? I mean, even if there weren’t any feelings involved on your part, that’s just not cool.”

“Yeah, well,” Michael mutters. “I told him that. Let’s see if it sticks.”

“Look… not that I’m judging you or anything, but why did you sleep with him when you know he’s on the brink of starting to date someone?”

“In love, remember?” Michael’s chin wobbles dangerously as he blows out another cloud of smoke, and his eyes are glazing over with tears. He stares out on the dimly lit garden, trying to will the tears back. “Kinda difficult to say no when the person you’re in love with tells you that they want you, with emphasis on the ‘ _you_ ’. Makes it easy to pretend for a bit that it actually means something.”

“Maybe it does mean something,” Luke offers quietly. “Have you ever considered that there’s a chance he feels the same? Or that he’d be open to the idea at least?”

Wiping quickly at his eyes, Michael smiles briefly at Luke. “Sure. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, but if he doesn’t and I confess to him, the fall’s gonna be pretty fucking bad.”

“You don’t think it’s worth taking the risk? It’d save you a ton of heartache if it ended up working out.”

“And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll be worse off than I already am.”

Luke’s eyebrows are drawn together in a sad frown. “Will you, though?” he asks. “Because you’re smoking and crying in my backyard in the middle of the night, and… I’m sorry, but I don’t see this ending in a good way if you keep going like this.”

“Or I get over it and Cal and I live happily ever after with other people.”

“You’ve been in love with him for, like, three years, Mike. It’s not gonna stop if you keep jumping into bed with him whenever you get the chance.”

“Way to make me sound like a pathetic headcase.”

“Well, you kinda are, but I still love you.”

Michael doesn’t know how long they sit there, but he ends up smoking no less than four cigarettes before Luke tells him that he ought to stop before he gives himself a nicotine shock and throws up all over himself. While a part of him would like to tell Luke to go fuck himself, he’s too fucking tired, so he doesn’t respond at all. He rests his head on Luke’s shoulder, and Luke lets him until a deep yawn ripples through Michael’s body.

Calum’s fast asleep when Michael slides in under the doona. The room’s mostly dark, but Michael is able to tell that Calum looks peaceful, his lips slightly parted to release an occasional puff of air. The knowledge that this will be the last time in however long that he’ll have the privilege of seeing Calum like this, that someone else is gonna be granted the permission to behold it soon, makes a dull, yet intense ache sprout from his sternum, branching out to every crevice of his body.

A soft snore breaks the relative silence, and Michael smiles as he watches Calum’s face scrunch up for a split second. Stretching out his hand, he drags his fingers down along the side of Calum’s face, a brief, ghostly touch that’s all Michael allows himself before he pulls back.

As he creates as much distance between them as he can, Michael takes one last look at Calum’s face before he mumbles, “Love you,” and closes his eyes. He wonders if there’s a chance that a day will come when those words, being completely non-platonic in nature, won’t be met with silence, but rather with reciprocation.

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

Spending time with his family always feels good, and not for the first time, Michael wonders why he so rarely makes the thirty minute drive from his flat to his mum’s house. It’s not the same house that he grew up in, but it’s filled with many of the same pieces of furniture, photos and decorations, and the scent is the same one he remembers finding comfort in as a child and teenager. He spends two full days there right before New Year’s Eve, being fed and sleeping and helping out with miscellaneous little tasks around the house, and it feels good. Cathartic, in a way.

Not that it lasts. He didn’t expect it to either, but it still hits him with the power of a sucker punch when he returns home late in the evening of the 30th and finds himself surrounded by a silence that feels stale. His footsteps seem to echo as he heads to the bathroom to put his laundry from the trip in the hamper, mocking him and everything that’s wrong with his life. Heading to the bedroom, he gives himself a mental slap across the face; there’s really only one thing in his life that’s a problem, everything else is okay or better. 

He supposes the real issue is that that one thing is big enough to overshadow almost everything else, and he also supposes that that makes him something of a drama queen.

His bed, while high quality, feels too big for him alone. And it is, because one person of average build doesn’t need a bed that’s almost as wide as it is long. It’s meant for two. Michael squashes that thought by yanking his pillow out from under his head and slapping it across his own face. The only result is that a monster appears in its place, a nasty, green one that wonders if Calum’s been on his date yet and whether or not they’re both in Calum’s bed at the moment. The green monster grows another head, this one a maliciously gleeful one that thrives on the knowledge that there’s no way in hell that whatever this guy – Frederick, was it? – can do for Calum in bed is anywhere near as good as what Michael can do.

But then a third head appears, forcing its way up and out, and it’s so soaked through with heartbroken contempt that it’s dripping all over Michael, filling his lungs with its poison until that’s all he can breathe. It transforms the oxygen he inhales into fury and the carbon dioxide he exhales into agony, and it keeps him alive for the time being, but it’s sure to kill him far faster than pure air would.

He’s unable to fall asleep that night, and when his alarm goes off at five in the morning, his eyes are red and puffy and his cheeks feel stiff, as if coated with a mud mask. More than one odd look is thrown at him when he walks into the hotel kitchen and wordlessly gets started on helping Bea get breakfast ready, and he’s silently glad that Luke’s working the late shift and that their shifts won’t overlap. Spending the entire day at work on autopilot has him feeling somewhat numb by the time he clocks out, and said numbness stays with him as he drives home, parks his car and trudges up the stairs.

It’s not until he’s standing in front of his front door, rooting through his pockets in search of the keys to unlock it that the numbness evaporates. What it’s replaced with is, quite unfortunately, a desperate urge to get the fuck out of sight, which makes him fumble with the keys until he drops them to the floor. They land with a loud, metallic rustling sound, and he groans internally as he picks them up, then waits, waits, waits, until–

“Hey.”

Turning his head to throw Calum a quick smile, Michael says, “Hi.”

Abandoning a bag of groceries by his own front door, Calum approaches Michael with a crooked smile. “Long day?” he asks. “You kinda look like shit.”

“Thanks, that warms my heart,” Michael says as he finally manages to unlock the door and pushes it open.

“Are we okay?” Calum asks, effectively drawing Michael to a halt with one foot over the threshold. “You haven’t responded to any of my texts in the last few days and your front door is always locked.” Pause. “It kinda feels like you’re avoiding me.”

“I was at my mum’s yesterday and the day before,” Michael says, turning his body just enough to be able to look at Calum. “And I’ve been busy with… you know, work.”

Calum nods as he puts his hands in the pockets of his work pants. “Okay. You sure we’re good? We haven’t really talked at all since the 26th and that was barely a couple of sentences.”

“We’re fine,” Michael says. “Look, I’m tired, so I should–”

“Do you have plans today?” Calum interrupts. “New Year’s Eve and all.”

“No, Luke’s working and Ashton’s with his family and I can’t be arsed to hit up anyone else, so I was just gonna stay in and do nothing. Don’t really feel like going out.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Calum smiles weakly. “Wanna do nothing together?”

“Don’t you have a date with that guy you told us about on Christmas Day?”

“Hm?” Calum blinks, then understanding seems to dawn on him, and he shakes his head. “Oh, right. No, we only had that one date, it was enough to make us both realise we weren’t exactly meant to be.”

There was a time, not too long ago, that Michael would rejoice at hearing those words. Now, they just make him feel tired and give him an urge to go sit in the shower. “Right.”

“So… is that a yes or a no? I have a ton of chips and I could make us brownies or something.”

“Chips and brownies.” Michael smiles despite himself. “Classy.”

Calum brightens up so quickly that it’s like someone’s flipped a switch. “That sounds like a yes.” Before Michael can neither confirm nor deny the assumption, Calum’s spun on his heel and is jogging down the hallway to his own flat. “Just gotta shower and get changed and I’ll be over!” he calls before he disappears through the door and slams it shut.

Going about his apartment, tidying whatever mess he can find, Michael tries not to think. He refuses to think, actually. The problem is that the part of his brain that refuses to think is marginally weaker than the part that insists on thinking. If Calum isn’t dating anyone, that means there’s nothing stopping him from sleeping with Michael, which means there’s a solid chance he’s gonna make a move at some point throughout the evening. It’s easy to tell himself that Luke’s right, that continuing to sleep with Calum is sending him closer and closer to inevitable doom, and it’s also easy to tell himself that he’s gonna say no if Calum makes a move tonight.

But he knows he’s not gonna say no. He knows that the moment Calum’s lips are on his or Calum’s hand trails up his thigh, he’s gonna give in and let himself be taken apart on the couch, the floor, the bed, the dining table, up against the wall or wherever else they happen to end up.

He tries to keep a certain distance from Calum when he arrives, though, waiting until Calum’s sat down on one end of the couch before he picks a spot on the other end. A movie that Michael neither recognises nor is paying attention to is playing on the TV, and he absentmindedly eats the chips Calum brought over while focusing on nothing in particular. Calum seems to be too preoccupied with something on his phone to look at either the TV or Michael. They haven’t spoken a word to each other in at least twenty minutes when the movie ends, and Michael thinks to himself, equal parts annoyed and wistful, that if Calum was just gonna sit on his phone all evening, he might as well have stayed at home.

As Michael is less than interested in coming off as sour, he makes sure to add a joking tone to his voice when he asks, “What’s so interesting about your phone that it outweighs both me and a decent movie? You’re not watching porn, are you?”

Calum looks up and grins. “If I wanted to watch porn, I’d just take you to bed, wouldn’t I?”

Michael forces out a laugh. “Thanks, I think. So, what is it, then, if not porn?”

“Tinder.”

Michael blinks. “Tinder,” he repeats. “Since when are you on Tinder?”

“Since I realised that there was no reason not to try it,” Calum says with a shrug. “I know what you’re thinking, but a guy I work with met his girlfriend on there and they’ve been together for, like, four years, so it’s not just an easy way to find a hook-up. It’s not like I’ve had much luck in the love-department lately, nothing seems to be working out, so I figured I’d give it a go.”

Something breaks inside Michael then, and he stares at the side of Calum’s head as Calum’s attention returns to his phone. It all descends on him at once, everything that’s happened and everything that hasn’t happened between himself and Calum since the day they met. The late nights lounging on one of their couches, the kisses, the hugs, the sex, the complaining to each other whenever something’s gone wrong, all the times they’ve cooked for each other or gone out to dinner, the endless movie nights they’ve had, the sleepy conversations about everything and nothing they’ve shared whenever they’ve slept in the same bed. 

And Michael fully realises that he’s always gonna have all that with Calum, but that they’re never gonna be on the same wavelength when it comes to what it all means. To Michael, it means everything; the moments he gets Calum’s full and undivided attention is something he cherishes, despite the pain he knows is gonna follow sooner or later. To Calum, on the other hand, it’s all just a close friendship with a couple of convenient perks thrown into the mix.

Michael’s eyes sting when the word ‘convenient’ hits him, because he doesn’t wanna be a convenience. He doesn’t wanna be _Calum’s_ convenience, willing to be used while desperately craving to be seen as something more.

“You’ve… you’ve resorted to Tinder now,” he says eventually, his voice breaking halfway through the statement.

Calum hums, but doesn’t look up. “Yeah.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Michael clenches his teeth before he asks, shakily, "Have you ever, even for a moment, considered _me_?"

Calum looks up then, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Have I ever considered you for what?”

Biting down at the inside of his cheek, hard enough that he can taste blood, Michael forces out the words that have been threatening to spill out of his mouth for longer than he can even remember. “For dating, for… more than what we are,” he says, diverting his eyes to his lap.

Calum’s quiet for what feels like ten whole minutes. In the crook of his eye, Michael can see him lowering his phone to the couch, leaving it there. “What?” he says in the end.

“I know you want a relationship and all that comes with it, so… why can’t you have it with me?” Michael asks. “We already fuck and spend a ton of time together, so... why aren’t I good enough to have the whole package with?”

“Is that what you want?” Calum asks, and Michael gives a tiny shrug of his shoulders. Inhaling sharply, Calum clears his throat before muttering, “I’ve never… no.”

"Right.” Michael nods jerkily. “Yeah. Because… you want those coupley things, but you'll literally try to find them with _anyone_ before you'll give it a go with me.” He can hear his voice growing sharper, more demanding, but he can’t bring himself to stop. He’s already fallen off the ledge, stooping towards inevitable doom; he might as well make the crash a spectacular one. “This isn’t even a classic case where you’re afraid of commitment and where _that’s_ the reason you’ve never thought about dating me, because you want the commitment, you want everything mushy and cute, but you’ve never considered _me_ as the person you could have it with.”

“Michael…”

“No, Calum, I– shit… I’m just your best friend, who you spend time with almost every day, and who you fuck whenever other options aren’t easily available, and that’s… why can’t I be more to you? Are parts of me so fucking unattractive and off-putting that I'm only good enough for sex as far as non-platonic connections go? So much so that you'd rather go swiping on Tinder for potential partners than to consider what's been right in front of you for years?” 

"I… no, Mikey, of course that's not–"

"Don't." Michael feels himself deflating slowly, like a large balloon that’s had a microscopic hole poked in it. Pulling the inside of his bottom lip in between his teeth, he pushes out a trembling breath. “What is it, then?” he asks. “Is the idea of going on dates with me and kissing me without it ending in sex and letting me buy you flowers or some shit for Valentine's and falling asleep in my arms and– and maybe, one day, call me your boyfriend _that_ repulsive, Cal?"

An empty type of helplessness descends on Calum’s face, starting with his eyes, ending with his jaw, and it’s an ugly sight to behold. Heart wrenching in the nastiest possible way. “I don’t know what to say,” he mutters. “You’re throwing a lot at me at once here and I… there’s nothing wrong with you, you know I love you, but I’ve never–”

"Then why?" Michael screws his eyes shut against the humiliated tears that are threatening to spill, and when he speaks up again, his voice has been reduced to a raspy whisper. "Why do you only want me when you're single and can't be arsed to find a one night stand? Why do you keep coming back to me?"

"Because I… we have good sex?"

"Yeah, we do. The sex is amazing, best sex I've ever had. Wanna know why?" he asks, and Calum nods, but it’s a gesture laced with uncertainty and a hint of fright. "Because I love you. Because I love feeling that close to you, because just for a little bit, you're mine and mine only, and you want me enough to claim me as yours."

“You… love?” Calum asks weakly. “You love me? As in… not just as a friend?”

A single tear escapes and rolls down Michael’s cheek, and he makes a small, pitiful sound that he reckons he ought to be ashamed of. He’s not, though. “I guess.” Calum doesn’t answer, and Michael forces himself to breathe deeply once, twice. Some semblance of presence of mind returns to him as he does, and his lips curve up in the weakest of smiles. “I’m sorry. I know you can’t… help how you feel or don’t feel, and you don’t owe me anything, and I– shit, I lashed out. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Calum mumbles. “I should probably get home, it’s late and… yeah.” He stands up, and his movements are stiff. “I’ll just… we’ll talk another day, yeah?”

Michael nods twice, but doesn’t say anything. He stares at his own lap, his ears picking up every little sound Calum makes as he walks out of the living room, into the entrance hall, puts his shoes on, opens the front door, steps outside, then closes it behind himself with a quiet click that reverberates painfully in Michael’s head. The silence Michael is left with once alone is choking him, pressing insistently against his temples, delivering punch after punch to his diaphragm until pain becomes nausea and shock becomes a flood of tears. He falls over sideways on the couch and curls in on himself while he reaches for his phone on the coffee table. It’s almost nine o’clock, he knows Luke is still at work, but he doesn’t think twice about it before he opens his contact list and finds Luke’s name.

It rings half a dozen times before Luke answers. “ _Hey,_ ” he says. “ _I’m still at work, so–_ ”

“Are you busy tomorrow?” Michael asks, and the question is swiftly followed by a fairly disgusting-sounding sniffle. He doesn’t care.

Luke’s quiet for a moment before he replies. “ _I have work until four, but I’m free after that,_ ” he says. “ _What’s going on? Are you okay?_ ”

Michael laughs shakily as another flood of tears run down his cheeks. “Not exactly. I told Cal and… it didn’t go very well.”

“ _What?_ ” Luke asks weakly. “ _You– no, no way, why didn’t it go well?_ ”

“I don’t feel like doing this right now, I just– do you wanna come over tomorrow afternoon? I don’t have work and I don’t feel like being alone all day.”

“ _Yeah, I’ll come straight over from work,_ ” Luke says. “ _Want me to bring something to eat? Or drink?_ ”

“Frozen pizza? The one with mozzarella and tomatoes?”

“ _You got it. Are you gonna be okay until then? Ash has tomorrow off, too, so he can come over and keep you company until I’m done at work._ ”

“Doesn’t he have things to do? You’re getting married in, like, two weeks.”

“ _Which is why everything is under control by now. He’ll be at yours by noon, okay?_ ”

“Tell him it’s fine if he has things to do, though,” Michael says. “I don’t wanna put him out.”

“ _He’s not gonna be put out, don’t worry. Try and get some sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow._ ”

They hang up after an emotionless “Bye” from Michael, and an emotion ridden “Love you,” from Luke. Michael doesn’t move after he hangs up, he just lies there while a steady stream of tears fall from his eyes, staring at nothing in particular as Calum’s words swim in and out of his thoughts. They bring with them an agonising blow to his stomach every time they come around, ones that force him to curl further in on himself for each time until he drifts off to sleep in a full-on fetal position.

No one ever has to know, do they?

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

Sunshine is bleeding through every window in the flat. It’s a direct contrast to Michael’s mood as he turns on the coffee maker and grabs a half-empty bag of Skittles for breakfast, and it leaves him vaguely dizzy and feeling even more downtrodden than he already felt the moment he woke up a little after eleven. He tries not to think as he drinks his coffee and eats his skittles and focuses on a rerun of the morning news on his TV, but it would seem that the abundance of sugar and caffeine collecting in his body has the opposite of the desired effect. Everything works in highwire, including his emotions, and just before the clock strikes noon, he’s crying again, whimpering through mouthful after mouthful of Skittles until he gets a stomach ache and has to lie down.

Ashton finds him like that a short while later, eyes red and face puffy from crying. Not a word passes between them as Ashton slides in next to Michael and pulls him in by the shoulders to rest on his chest, letting him cry without demand for an explanation. It’s a completely unproductive way of existing, but there and then, it’s all Michael needs; the presence of a human being who doesn’t ask, who doesn’t want anything from him, but who’s just _there_ to witness him breaking down without passing judgement.

He opens his mouth at some point, though he has no idea what time it is. “This fucking sucks,” he rasps. “Was no one ever gonna tell me what it felt like?”

“What, heartbreak?” Ashton asks with a chuckle. “Sorry. One of those things you have to experience for yourself to fully understand, I think.”

“Have you ever experienced it?”

“Once, yeah.”

“How did you get over it?”

“I didn’t, not completely,” Ashton says. He tightens his hold around Michael before he continues. “Don’t get me wrong. I love Luke more than life itself, he’s everything I’ve ever wanted, but I left a couple of parts of myself with that first guy. I’ll never get them back, but it came to a point where I realised I could live a more than satisfying life without those parts, you know?”

Clinging onto Ashton’s shirt, Michael shakes his head. “Can’t say that I do, no.”

“You’ll get there. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you will.”

“Hopefully.”

“You will. Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Nothing to talk about,” Michael mutters. He wipes his nose with the sleeve of his jumper. “I told him, he didn’t say anything back, and that was that.”

“Maybe he was just surprised,” Ashton says. “It’s a lot to take in if he’s been completely clueless this whole time, you know?”

“He said he’d never even considered dating me and then got up and left,” Michael says quietly. “He doesn’t want me, not like that.”

“He probably just needed time to think.”

“Or he was completely disgusted and wanted to get as far away from me as possible.”

Ashton sighs. “ _Or_ you’re being pessimistic and jumping to conclusions. It’s been less than a day; give him some time before you fall too far into that black abyss otherwise known as heartache, okay?”

Rubbing his face against Ashton’s shirt, likely smearing it with snot and tears, Michael grunts. “Too late, I’ve already fallen in.”

“Yeah, well, find something to grab onto for the time being. No need to fall further in than necessary until you’ve talked to Cal again.”

Michael doesn’t know when or how, but he ends up falling asleep on Ashton’s chest, and he doesn’t wake up until the sun is starting to set. He’s still lying half on top of Ashton, but Luke’s arrived at some point and is sitting on his other side. The TV is on, though the volume is turned almost all the way down. He closes his eyes again, doesn’t feel like facing any type of conversation just yet.

“It’s gonna be okay, right?” Luke says, his voice hushed. “What do we do if it’s not?”

“Then I guess we won’t have the flowers we want at our wedding, princess,” Ashton replies. Luke makes an unhappy noise, and Ashton laughs quietly. “Don’t worry about it, it’ll be beautiful either way.”

“Because I’ll be there and I’m all the beauty the whole shebang needs?”

“It’ll be a pretty crappy wedding if you’re _not_ there, at least for me. Think Jack will take your place? He kinda looks like you.”

“I don’t think he’ll suck you off in the bathroom after the ceremony, though.”

“Neither will you, according to yourself, so…”

“Maybe I’ll change my mind when I see you in your tux, I mean you look–”

Rather unwilling to hear whatever words Luke’s about to utter, Michael clears his throat and says, “I’m awake, you know.”

Ashton’s torso shakes with a curt laugh. “Sorry.”

“I’m not,” Luke says. “I said what needed to be said.”

“But not what I needed to hear,” Michael says dryly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Luke dismisses. “Want that pizza now? According to Ash you haven’t eaten anything but Skittles all day and it’s almost seven o’clock now, so it’s probably about time.”

Freeing himself carefully from Ashton’s hold, Michael sits up, grimacing slightly at the stiffness in his back and neck. “I’m good,” he says. “Don’t really feel like eating.”

Luke sighs. “Okay. Do you wanna talk about it, then?”

“Not really,” Michael says.

“So… you wanna just lie here and use my fiancé as a cushion?”

“The fiancé is happy to be used as a cushion,” Ashton says before Michael can respond.

Michael closes his eyes. “Thanks.”

Not a word is spoken for a long time after that. Darkness eventually falls, and when the clock strikes eight thirty according to the clock on the wall next to the TV, Michael thanks Luke and Ashton for coming over before he bids them goodnight with the closest thing to a smile he can manage. He can feel their eyes on him as he heads to the bedroom, and he knows they’re gonna talk about him the moment he’s out of hearing range. It’s fine.

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

In later years, Michael can’t recall how he made it through the week following him coming clean to Calum.

He wakes up, he goes to work, he eats one meal a day and gets roughly three hours of sleep per night. It’s pitiful, to say the least, but whenever he’s at home and awake, all he does is cry on and off until he gets a headache and has to lie down, where he stays until the headache disappears, leaving nothing but emptiness in its wake. The only positive thing that can be said is that there are no sex-noises to be heard from Calum’s apartment, meaning that Calum isn’t sleeping with anyone or that he’s doing it somewhere else. 

The masochistic part of Michael focuses on the latter option, while the rational part of him, the one that knows Calum almost as well as he knows himself, acknowledges that there’s a fair chance Calum is rattled enough from Michael’s admission that he’s staying celibate for the time being. When he’s in bed at night, however, all he sees as soon as he closes his eyes is Calum in bed with a faceless person, giving them the pleasure and the attention that he used to give to Michael.

Luke texts him every day to ask how he’s doing, but Michael doesn’t have the heart to bug Luke with his problems, not when his wedding is less than a week away. He wants Luke to enjoy the days leading up to the big day, not spend them worrying about Michael’s self-inflicted emotional turmoil. So, he keeps saying that he’s fine, that he’s working through it one day at the time, and if Luke notices how pale Michael is or how his eyes are constantly bloodshot when they see each other at work, he doesn’t point it out.

It’s on Wednesday, three days before the wedding, when Michael sees Calum again. He’s just returned from picking up his tux, as well as a bag of groceries, and is exiting the elevator when Calum appears around the corner. They both stop dead in their tracks. Michael’s heart skips a beat when they lock eyes, and the sudden appearance of a hurricane of mixed emotions wreaks havoc on his insides.

“Hi,” Calum says eventually. He looks and sounds exhausted, Michael notices.

Michael swallows and darts his gaze to the floor. “Hi,” he mumbles before he gets his feet moving again, walking past Calum towards his front door. With shaky hands, he manages to get the door unlocked and opened. He only barely hears the softly uttered, “Michael…” behind him before he closes the door and slides to the floor, head buried in his knees.

As he sits there on the floor in his entrance hall, crying soundlessly, he wonders how long it’s gonna take before he can think about Calum, much less _see_ him without reliving the events of New Year’s Eve all over again. He decides there and then that if it hasn’t happened by April, he’s selling his apartment and moving out.

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

Michael’s car breaks down when he’s halfway home from work on Friday. The insurance is covering it and all, but that does nothing to raise his mood when he has to take the bus the remaining four kilometres and arrives back home more than half an hour later than usual. He’s sweaty and thanks to having to move a truly ridiculous amount of produce from their crates to the walk-in fridge at work, his back is sore. A scalding hot shower helps a little bit, but he still feels drained and barely picks at his dinner before lying down on the couch and turning on the TV just to escape the silence. As has become a habit over the last two weeks, tears start pooling in his eyes when some time has passed and his thoughts drift to Calum, and he’s gotten so used to it that he’s prepared to let them fall without putting up a fight.

They never do fall, though, because a knock on his door yanks Michael out of his miserable headspace before they can.

Dragging himself up from the couch and rubbing his eyes, he pads out to the entrance hall, unlocks the door and swings it open. Of all the things he expected to find on the other side, the sight that actually meets him didn’t even make the top twenty. Calum’s standing there, in his work clothes, his hair sticking up here and there while a smudge of dirt taints his cheek. The more confusing part, is that he’s holding a bouquet of daffodils in his hand, and that his face carries an expression of nervousness.

“Hi,” Michael says after a beat, and he’s quite proud that his voice doesn’t crack. “What… what’s up?”

“Just got off from work,” Calum says, which while being quite obvious, also doesn’t answer anything at all. He continues, though. “I stopped by the flower shop around the corner from the construction site on my way home and I got these–” He holds up the bouquet as if to illustrate “–because they’re supposed to represent some… things.”

“I think most flowers represent something,” Michael says. “But okay. Cool. Why are you telling me–”

“They’re for you,” Calum interrupts before he all but thrusts the bouquet against Michael’s chest. Waiting for Michael to hesitantly accept the flowers, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and clears his throat and smiles. “The girl at the shop said they represent new beginnings, among other things.”

Michael considers the words for all of three seconds, give or take, before his heart drops into his stomach. “Oh,” he says. “So… you want us to move on with our friendship, start anew, or something? I can’t– I’m sorry, but that’s not–”

“No, actually, I… well, yeah, but I was thinking we could get a proper new beginning?” Calum says, eyebrows quirked into a hesitant, hopeful frown. 

Michael swallows thickly. “I’m not really interested in playing games with you, so can you… please stop speaking in riddles?”

“Sorry. I meant, like, you and me?” 

“Yeah, thanks, I got that,” Michael says, surprising himself with the sharp edge he manages to apply to the words.

Calum draws a deep, steadying breath. “Right, sorry.” He looks down for a fraction of a second. “I… can we rewind to that night when you told me you loved me and asked me why you couldn’t be the person I did all those couply things with, and… and instead of me running away, I could… give you flowers and ask you to be my completely non-platonic date to the wedding and… say it back?”

Michael loses his grip on the bouquet and it falls to the floor, but he barely notices. His focus is fixated on Calum and on replaying the words that came out of his mouth, over and over again until Calum clears his throat. He’s begging Michael to say something about as loudly as a person can beg without saying anything.

“Really?” Michael says eventually, his voice breaking halfway through the word. “You wanna… you really wanna–”

“If you’re still interested,” Calum says quickly.

Michael nods, a little dazed. “I– yeah, I… yeah.” A thought hits him, though, and he grimaces. “It’s not a… pity-thing, is it? Like, you feel bad for me because of… everything, so you–” 

“You really think I’d be that cruel?” Calum chuckles, but there’s no humour in it whatsoever. Michael just shrugs his shoulders in response, and Calum shakes his head. “It’s not a pity-thing, Michael. I wanna date you. Like, a lot. It just took me a bit of soul searching and a lot of using Luke and Ashton as therapists to realise that what I’m feeling for you is a hell of a lot more than friendship or just sexual.”

Letting out a slightly hysterical laugh, Michael steps over the bouquet and throws his arms around Calum’s shoulders, pulling him in for a rib crushing hug. Calum returns the embrace, burying his face in Michael’s neck and inhaling shakily before he mumbles, “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too,” Michael whispers. “Fucking hell, I missed you, Cal.”

A sound close to a whimper spills over Calum’s lips, and he tangles his fingers in Michael’s hair. “And… this comes two weeks too late, but… I love you, too.”

Michael gulps; he can’t help it, and he draws back from the embrace, only to crush his lips against Calum’s while his heart is doing somersaults. Calum makes a muffled sound of surprise, but he kisses back without hesitance and lets Michael drag him into the apartment, their lips remaining connected as they move. It’s not until they’re almost by the bedroom door and Michael drags his tongue along the seam of Calum’s lips that Calum takes a step back.

“Can we– we should talk, shouldn’t we?” he asks, panting slightly, his forehead leaned against Michael’s.

Though Michael’s more than just a little desperate to get Calum naked, he knows that Calum’s right. So, he nods and leads the way to the couch, where they sit down facing each other, Michael’s knee brushing Calum’s thigh.

It’s Calum who speaks up first. “Can I… can I ask how long you’ve had feelings for me?” he asks, his voice laced with what Michael recognises as guilt.

Closing his eyes, Michael feels his cheeks burn with humiliation. “Since a few months after we met,” he says without looking Calum in the eyes.

Calum draws a sharp breath. “That’s… almost three years,” he says.

Michael smiles weakly. “I thought I had a chance after we slept together that first time, I thought maybe you felt the same and… I was gonna ask you out, but then I heard you shagging someone else a few days after, so I just…” Michael trails off and lets out a broken attempt at a laugh. “I took what I could get, figured it was better than nothing.”

“Was it really, though?”

“Sometimes. When we watched a movie or had dinner together or whatever before we fucked, and you chose to spend the night instead of going home. It felt like… well, it was easy to pretend, even though I knew it wasn’t gonna last.”

“You never said anything,” Calum says softly. “You never even hinted at something being wrong. You just let me continue doing what I did even though it had to hurt like a bitch.”

“You didn’t know,” Michael says. “I’m not… look, I know I lashed out on New Year’s Eve, but I’ve never been mad at you. I could have told you at any point how I felt, but I was scared, so I–”

“No, no, I get it,” Calum cuts in. He reaches out a hand, folding it loosely around Michael’s, and smiles. “I think I may have… noticed something, a couple of times, I just didn’t connect the dots at the time. You've looked at me in a certain way sometimes, like… even if we were with other people or we were sitting across the room from each other and engaged in different conversations, I noticed that you gave me these looks. Really… emotional ones. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but it makes sense now.”

“Oh,” Michael mumbles, laughing curtly. “I didn’t know I did that, but… makes sense, I guess.”

“I should have realised it sooner, though.”

“How could you have? I made it my main mission in life to keep it hidden from you, so–”

“No, I mean my own feelings. I should have realised ages ago what they were.” Calum shakes his head once, smiling crookedly. “Like the way I almost enjoyed not seeing anyone because it gave me a free pass to go back to you. Or the fact that I’ve always loved how little you date.”

“Gee, thanks,” Michael snorts. “Just wanted me to be alone and unhappy, did you?”

“No, but I wanted you to be happy with me, not with someone else, and I really wish I’d realised it sooner.” Scooting closer to Michael, Calum cups his jaw and leans in to kiss him chastely. “I’m really sorry, Mikey, for all the… shit I’ve put you through, even if I didn’t mean to.”

Michael nods, his lips brushing against Calum’s. “It’s okay. If you don’t mind, I’d rather just focus on the present instead of the past.”

“Okay, but I’m probably gonna keep apologising for a while.”

“That’s not focusing on the present, you muppet,” Michael says as he lets himself fall backwards onto the couch, dragging Calum down with him. “I’d really rather prefer it if you apologised by fucking me. Or letting me fuck you. Blowjobs work, too. Or you could eat me out.”

Calum’s lips stretch into a wide smile, but to Michael’s surprise, he shakes his head. “Tomorrow, after the wedding,” he says. “Date first, sex after.”

Michael gapes and an incredulous laugh tumbles out. “Are you serious? We’ve had sex, like, six million times, but _now_ , when you’ve professed your love for me and all, you suddenly wanna wait?”

“Yup, I wanna start this relationship by doing things in the right order,” Calum says, still smiling. “So, date first, sex later.”

“Fucking hell…” Michael groans. “Fine, but we’re leaving that damn wedding at nine o’clock at the latest.”

“Luke would murder us.”

“Luke would understand if I explained the situation.”

“He’d understand that his best friend ditched his wedding party early because he simply _had_ to get his hands on his boyfriend’s dick? Have you met Luke? Or Ashton, for that matter?””

Michael bites down at his bottom lip as a blush creeps up on his face. “Boyfriend?”

Calum’s eyes widen. “Sorry, that just slipped out. We should probably… talk more before we decide on any labels.”

“We should, but… the option’s gonna be on the table in the relatively near future?” Michael asks, his cheeks heating up as he speaks. He can’t help it, not when Calum’s looking at him with pure adoration radiating from every square inch of his face; not when he’s more or less exactly where he’s wanted to be for almost three years; not when the gnawing hesitance that’s been a nearly constant presence since the first time he and Calum slept together has finally vanished. And he definitely can’t help it when leans down and kisses him, slowly and gently and without intending for it to go anywhere.

It’s a kiss for the sake of a kiss, and it feels more relaxing and satisfying than Michael ever could have dreamed of.

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

The wedding ceremony is a thing of beauty, and it’s hardly a surprise that a couple of people are shedding tears by the end of it. What _is_ somewhat surprising is that Luke’s managed to keep it together while Ashton hasn’t. As Michael stands by the podium, between the officiant and Jack, watching Luke and Ashton walk down the aisle, he doesn’t fail to notice how Luke leans in to whisper something into Ashton’s ear, nor does he fail to notice the subtle kick Ashton gives Luke’s shin.

Grinning slightly, he searches out Calum, who’s sitting in the second row. Calum’s face immediately lights up when their eyes meet, and Michael heart skips approximately fifteen beats. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since Calum showed up on Michael’s doorstep, and as Michael follows Luke and Ashton’s trail down the aisle, he thinks to himself that he’s incredibly grateful that he didn’t have to get through this day with a broken heart while doing everything in his power to avoid Calum.

What hasn’t occurred to either of them, however, is the fact that the development in their relationship is so recent that they haven’t had the chance to tell anyone. Including Luke and Ashton. So, it’s somewhat unfortunate, perhaps, that the way they find out is when they spot Michael and Calum walking into the reception hall a couple of hours after the ceremony, holding hands. Luke’s jaw drops, and before Michael has the chance to utter a single word, he’s staggering backwards under the weight of Luke, who’s thrown himself fully at Michael by wrapping his legs around Michael’s waist.

“You weigh a fucking ton, you ass,” Michael laughs when he’s regained his balance. “Let go.”

Luke lets himself be dropped to stand on his own two feet, taking a step back, and he’s smiling so widely his face is threatening to split in half. “You got your shit together,” he states, looking first at Michael, then at Calum, then back at Michael. “Like, you _actually_ got your shit together.”

“We did,” Michael says as he intertwines his fingers with Calum’s again.

“Which means _I_ got my shit together,” Calum says.

Luke shrugs his shoulders. “I was trying to be nice about it, but yeah. Pretty much.”

“Congrats, by the way,” Michael says, gesturing towards the matching rings on Luke and Ashton’s fingers.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Luke dismisses. “How did–”

“‘Whatever’? Really?” Ashton laughs. “I’m really fucking happy for you two–” He looks at Michael and Calum “–especially you, Michael, but _‘whatever’_ , Luke? Really? Your devotion is touching.”

“If you’re about to have your first fight as a married couple, please wait ten seconds so I can get my phone out and film it,” Michael says. “It’s gonna be helpful in court when you get your divorce.”

Afternoon turns into evening as they eat dinner, speeches are being held, more tears are shed, and by the time they’re finally allowed to get up, the sun has long since set and Michael’s more than just a little bit restless. He and Calum are sat at a table with three of Ashton’s friends, only one of whom Michael has met before. While he’s polite enough to engage in mindless smalltalk with them for a solid twenty minutes, he’s more than happy to accept when people start taking to the dance floor and Calum gets up, holding out a hand for Michael to take.

Michael isn’t much of a dancer, and trying to keep up with Calum, who apparently _can_ dance, proves to be a challenge that ends with Calum laughing and Michael scowling within five minutes. A slow song follows two rather upbeat ones, though, and Michael slumps against Calum’s body with a muttered, “Thank fuck.”

“How come you can’t dance?” Calum asks, traces of laughter still present in his eyes.

“How come you _can_?” Michael retorts.

“I took some lessons a few years back, figured it couldn’t hurt to have the basics down.”

“Yeah, well, that thought has never struck me, so… there you go.”

“Hm. Want me to teach you?”

“What, now?” Michael snorts. “Maybe another time.”

“Next date?” Calum asks. “You can cook me dinner and I can teach you how to dance?”

“Oh, we’re doing home dates now, are we?” Michael says, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. 

Calum laughs as he bumps his nose against Michaels. “I’m not a serial killer, I promise.”

“That’s what they all say, and the moment you turn your back to them, you’re being strangled.”

“Kinky.”

“Not when it leads to death.”

Calum responds by capturing Michael’s lips with his own and pulling him in closer. Sighing contently, Michael lets himself be rocked back and forth to the soft beat of the music while their lips move languidly against each other. His lips part easily when Calum’s tongue prods tentatively at the seam, and he raises a hand to the back of Calum’s head to steady himself.

“Go home, please.”

Michael jumps at the sound of Ashton’s voice right next to them. He has a slightly too sated smile adorning his face, and Luke’s hanging over his shoulders from behind, nuzzling into the side of Ashton’s neck. Their hair is decidedly less styled than it was half an hour earlier, and the top two buttons of Ashton’s shirt are undone. Neither of their ties are anywhere to be seen.

“I’d say the same to you, but it looks like it’s too late,” Calum says.

“We’re married, so we’re allowed,” Luke says. “It’s all in accordance with traditional values.”  
“Sure it is,” Michael says dryly. “Would you mind if we went home, though? I know it’s only, like, ten thirty, but… you know.”

“Nah, it’s alright,” Ashton says. “Some of our guests are starting to focus a little too much on how cute _you_ are instead of on us and we don’t want that.”

“Attention whore,” Luke sniggers.

Turning around in Luke’s arms, Ashton says, “And as of earlier today, you’re obligated to pay me attention for all eternity.”

“I know, we have paperwork that says so.”

Michael shakes his head, though not without smiling, as he turns his attention back to Calum. “Wanna go home?” he asks.

Calum’s only response is to grab a firm hold of Michael’s wrist and drag him towards the exit.

.*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.༻✦༺.*｡･ﾟ*.

As much as Michael loves Calum in a suit and as much as he loves the way Calum’s been looking at Michael’s tux-clad form all day, he loathes both the suit and the tux when all he wants is for them both to be naked. It’s a clumsy and far too meticulous process to get the clothing off and out of the way, and by the time they’re finally down to their underwear and falling over backwards onto Calum’s bed, they’re giggling and slightly sweaty. The mood changes the moment their lips connect, though, and in a matter of minutes, giggles have been exchanged for grunts and moans, while their underwear is on the floor.

Calum’s lying on top, one hand planted on the mattress to keep himself up while the other is cupping Michael’s face, his thumb rubbing gentle circles on Michael’s cheek while they kiss. From a macro perspective, there’s nothing new about the situation – they’re naked in bed, making out and rutting against each other until they’re fully hard. On a micro level, however, the differences between then and now are many and obvious enough to make Michael dizzy. 

The differences lie in the way Calum pulls back every now and again for no other apparent reason than to look at Michael’s face, to smile softly and to kiss his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, before returning to his lips. They lie in the way he’s taking his time to appreciate every part of Michael’s body before he reaches for the lube and a condom. They lie in the way he stops Michael with a shake of his head and a, “No, I… on your back, I wanna see you,” when Michael moves to get on all fours.

And so Michael remains on his back, legs bent and a pillow under his hips, while Calum opens him up with fingers that know Michael’s body better than anyone else ever had. Calum pauses occasionally with his fingers buried inside Michael to kiss and nip at the insides of his thighs, to lick over the head of Michael’s leaking cock. Michael can’t do anything but lie there and take everything he’s being given, his chest rising and falling rapidly with each inhale and exhale, his heart so warm that it feels like it might melt right out of his thorax.

When Calum finally pushes into him, Michael’s breath hitches in his throat, and a broken moan is ripped from somewhere deep inside him. Wrapping his legs around Calum’s waist, he can’t quite help the whispered, “I love you,” that tumbles over his lips. Calum buries his face in Michael’s neck with a soft gasp before he starts to thrust in and out at a steady pace. Words of praise keep passing between them, but Michael barely registers them; he can only focus on Calum’s tone of voice and every emotion it carries as he’s being brought closer and closer to his climax far sooner than he’d like. He wants for this to last forever, to remain safely tucked away with Calum, to bask in the plethora of golden sparkles that circulate in his veins until the end of time.

His orgasm builds slowly, making him shake from head to toe as he lets out a continuous stream of punctured moans, until he throws his head back and comes completely untouched with Calum’s name on his lips. Calum’s hips snap forward and he fucks into Michael four more times before he tenses and bites down on Michael’s shoulder as he climaxes with a muffled groan.

They don’t move for a long time after. Michael’s eyes are closed and his legs are stretched out parallel with Calum’s, his breathing relaxed and even, his hands stroking absentmindedly up and down Calum’s back. If not for the occasional kiss being planted on his neck and his shoulder, Michael might have been inclined to think Calum was asleep.

He’d be okay if that was the case.

Eventually, when their bodies are mostly dry, Calum sits up and pulls out of Michael, removing and tying the condom before tossing it in the trash under his bedside table. Michael stretches out, humming happily at the loud crack in his back, then flips over to lie on his side while Calum grabs the doona to throw over them.

“Hi,” he says after Calum’s laid down, close enough to Michael that their noses are almost touching.

Calum smiles tiredly. “Hi.”

“Good first date.”

“Mhm,” Calum hums, immediately followed by a suppressed yawn. “Sorry. I’m fucking exhausted.”

Throwing one leg over the doona, Michael drags his fingers along Calum’s jawline, smiling faintly when Calum’s eyelids flutter shut. He simply lies there and looks at Calum in the dim lighting coming from the hallway through a crack in the door, admiring Calum’s features, deliriously happy that he’s finally allowed to admire them as much as he wants. As Calum’s breathing starts to even out, he murmurs, “Love you.”

It takes a few seconds, but Calum eventually throws a heavy arm over Michael’s waist and whispers, half-asleep, “Love you, too. Always have, I think. Just didn’t realise it.”

Michael presses a dry kiss to Calum’s lips. It’s one-sided, Calum likely not even registering that he’s being kissed, but it doesn’t matter. There will be plenty of kisses in the future, and Michael intends to cherish each and every one of them the same way he cherishes this one.


End file.
